Four Years of RTI Act in
Orissa-A Review
Right to Food Campaign, Orissa
Foreword
Right to
Information Act completes its four years of implementation by
As we feel, the
implementation of the Act in Orissa is dismal. The citizens are seen getting
frustrated over functioning of public authorities and hurdles created by them
before the citizens trying to use the Act. They are also fast losing faith in
Orissa Information Commission, supposed to come to their aid against the errant
public authorities. More specifically speaking, not only the Commissioners have
failed in ensuring quick and proper disposal of cases, but also they have built
up a wall of secrecy around themselves to avoid leakage of any sensitive
information concerning financial and other matters. Many activists have
authored postings in mail groups making critical observation in respect of
implementation of the Act in the state and on functioning of Orissa Information
Commission. Quite some informed citizens have also shared their views
participating in the debate on RTI in Orissa. Mr. Chitta Behera and myself have
also contributed to the promotion of this debate through our postings and
articles.
We have compiled
such postings and articles in this booklet for the knowledge of the public. I
hope that it will help the interested readers gain an in-depth insight into the
key issues relating to implementation of RTI Act and functioning of Information
Commission in Orissa at a time when the Act turns 4+.
Pradip Pradhan
State Convener
Content
Sl. No. Subject Page
No
-
Chapter-1
Four Years
on, RTI Act in Orissa 1
(Postings on the mail groups for discourse
on implementation
of RTI in Orissa)
- Chapter-2
Orissa Information Commissioner: A lunatic let loose! 32
3.
CHAPTER-3 42
Beware of anti-BPL mindset of Orissa
Information Commission!
4.
CHAPTER-4 52
Complaints and Memoranda to Governor Orissa
5. CHAPTER-5
Oriya Articles on “Four years implementation of RTI in
Orissa” 65
CHAPTER-1
Four Years on,
RTI Act in Orissa
(Postings on the mail
groups for discourse on implementation of RTI in Orissa)
Subject: [Com-Con]
RTI Act and Govt of Orissa after 4 yers
From: Chitta Behera
<chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
on
RTI
Act and Govt of Orissa after 4 years
The RTI Act was enacted and partially enforced on 15th June
2005 all over the country excluding of course J&K. Less than a fortnight
away it shall complete 4 years of its existence, and in Orissa too. In keeping
with its inclusive sweep, the Act all at once entrusted its operationalisation
to the Governments at Centre and in States (appropriate Govt, to use the
expression of the Act), and to Speakers of the legislatures, Chief Justices of
Supreme Court and High Courts, and for special reasons to President and
Governors, all designated as Competent Authorities. It also set up Information
Commissions at both Central level and in States to do the job of a watchdog
over the appropriate Governments and Competent Authorities. Strange may it
seem, the architects of the law had a certain premonition that the watchdogs
being the men and women in flesh and blood like other gullible humans wouldn’t
just bark at some trespassers for obvious earthly reasons. They therefore
preemptively inserted a trouble-shooting clause under Section 17, which hands
the ultimate power to the citizens to rein in the malfunctioning and corrupt
Commissioners, the watchdogs themselves albeit through complaints against them
made before the President or Governor as the case may be.
And by today’s standards 4 years is not a
matter of joke. And just calculate how much public money must have flowed by
now in the name of RTI. A State Information Commissioner receives nearly Rs.1
lakh and 20 thousand per month, and the Chief State Commissioner more than
that. Each Central Commissioner receives the amount equivalent to that allowed
to Chief State Commissioner, and still a higher amount goes to the Chief
Central Commissioner. If we merely tot up the amounts spent after the
Commissioners at national level and in 28 States leaving aside other expenses
incurred for maintenance of the Commissions and implementation of the Act at
different levels by the appropriate Governments and competent authorities in
last 4 years, the figures would prove simply mind-boggling.
Time is now up therefore to venture a
cost-benefit enquiry into the performance by the public-funded RTI actors
across the country including Orissa. The attached Oriya write-up is a humble
effort to assess the role of one of such actors, State Government of Orissa in
juxtaposition to the one assigned to it under the Act. (Oriya
write-up is available in the page no. 1 of this
booklet)
Chitta Behera
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri,
From: Chitta
Behera <chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
Subject:
Orissa High Court RTI Rules 2005 must go
Date:
Orissa
High Court RTI Rules 2005 must go
Coming 15th June shall mark the
completion of 4 years of RTI Act 2005 since on this very date in 2005 the
President of India gave his assent to the Bill passed by the Parliament. The
Act has an inclusive jurisdiction in the sense that it makes all manner of
public authorities, do they belong to executive, legislative or judiciary,
accountable before the citizenry at large for disclosing information available
with them in prescribed manner both suo motu and in response to the
applications.
Of the three wings of the State edifice,
Judiciary held and continues to hold a pre- eminent position, for the simple
reason that it sits in judgment over the omissions and commissions of the other
two wings. It is true of course that the Supreme Court and High Courts of the
country had, right since inception, put in place a set of rules, clear,
cost-effective and user-friendly allowing the right to inspection and access of
the records and documents by the citizens in respect of the cases heard and
disposed of by the courts. But the said rules didn’t provide any space for
citizens to seek such kinds of information as these might relate to very system
of administration of justice or problems like alleged delay, corruption or
misfeasance in respect of hearing and disposal of cases confronted by the
citizens in specific cases. The RTI Act 2005 has made up this deficiency by
mandating the Courts at each level like other kinds of public authorities to
declare suo motu 17 categories of basic information relating to their
functions, finance and functionaries for everybody’s knowledge within an
inviolable timeframe and by enabling every citizen to seek and receive
information, again in a time-bound manner, on any matter, be it concerning the
governance of courts or adjudication of the cases.
The RTI Act in its Section-28 declared the
Chief Justice of Supreme Court and that of High Courts as Competent Authorities
to prescribe the appropriate Rules on the matters relating to fees for
implementing the provisions of the Act in their respective jurisdictions. The
Sub-section (2) of the Section 28 forewarned the said competent authorities not
to frame any such rules, which might ‘prejudice’ the mandate of the Act.
But what we noticed in case of Orissa High
Court RTI Rules 2005 notified in February 2006 (vide www.orissahighcourt.nic.in) is simply disastrous. It is not only
complete repudiation of the principal mandates of the parent Act but also much,
much worse than the right to inspection and access of information as provided
under the existing Orissa High Court Rules 1948. Because of this and this
alone, not a single applicant, has availed any information till date using
the Orissa HC RTI Rules 2005, as has been revealed recently by a
PRIA-sponsored study on RTI in Orissa.
However, more disconcerting than the Orissa
High Court’s mockery of RTI Act is the studied silence of the Orissa
Information Commission on the matter in course of its three annual reports
covering 2005 to 2008 coupled with cultivated reticence of the media barons in
highlighting the issue and opportunistic yeah-saying by big brothers among NGOs
of the State.
It is high time for all the
civil society groups to ask the Chief Justice of Orissa High Court to jettison
the RTI Rules 2005 lock, stock and barrel and replace it by appropriate set of
Rules to be framed in fitness of the parent Act.
(The Oriya write-up which speaks
of all about this wake-up call is
available in the page no. 2 of this booklet )
Chitta
Behera
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [OREGS
Watch] Appeal to Citizens on RTI
From:
"TheHumanity Humanity" <thehumanity@rediffmail.com> on
To:
<oregs-watch@googlegroups.com>
Appeal to citizens to lodge complaint before
the Governor using Section 17 of RTI Act to protest against unjust acts of
Orissa Information Commission
Dear friends,
It has come to my notice that many citizens
are not satisfied with the decisions given by Orissa Information
Commission while disposing of a complaint or an appeal. In many cases, the
Commission has failed not only to ensure supply of information wrongfully
denied to the citizens but also to impose penalty on errant PIOs found
guilty. Till today, there is not a single case where the Commission has
imposed penalty on any officer belonging to OAS, IAS, IPS or IFS, though such
officers were found patently guilty of violating the provisions of RTI Act. On
the contrary, only small chaps- clerks, Panchayat Executive Officers,
Stenos and peons- have been singled out for penalisation by the Commission.
Moreover, the aggrieved citizens have been given an impression that nothing can
be done against the dispensations, good or bad, right or wrong, dished out by
the Commission. Such a misimpression is buttressed by a shrewd reference to a
particular expression occurring in the RTI Act that the decision of the Commission
is final and binding. As a consequence the citizens aggrieved by the omissions
and commissions in the decisions of the Commission develop a cynical feeling
that nothing can be legally done against the Commission howsoever flawed their
acts and decisions might be and thus land in a state of utter hopelessness. And
the price of people’s hopelessness is simply immeasurable – loss of faith in
RTI Act altogether. .
But as I know, there is a silver shining
amidst the engulfing clouds. And it is there in the RTI Act itself. It is the
Governor of a State who is empowered to take action against the
Information Commissioners on several grounds including inefficiency,
misbehaviour or corruption. The Section 17(1) says that the Governor may get a
complaint of misbehavior or incapacity received against a Commissioner enquired
into by a Judge of the Supreme Court and may remove a Commissioner basing upon
the report of the said Judge. Section 17(2) says that pending the results of
the enquiry so ordered, the Governor may suspend a Commissioner from his post
and even prohibit him from attending the office during the period of enquiry.
Further the Section 17(3) gives a more direct power to Governor to remove a
Commissioner from his position if the latter is adjudged an insolvent, guilty
of moral turpitude, engaged in any paid employment outside the duties of his
office, unfit to continue in office owing to infirmity of body or mind, found
accumulating financial and other interests prejudicial to the duties of his
office.
As per the information supplied by the Office
of Governor in the month of Sept.’08, only 9 complaints were received against
Orissa Information Commissioners uptill then by the Office of Governor and the
said ones were under examination.
So I would appeal to all the citizens who
feel aggrieved by any act or decision of the Commission should, instead of
being hopeless or helpless, lodge their complaint to Governor urging action
against the Orissa Information Commissioners on the grounds
of inefficiency, corruption, misbehavior or an immoral act.
Thanks
Pradip Pradhan
Social Activist
M-99378-43482
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [Com-Con]
Four Years of RTI Act & Orissa Legislative Assembly
From: Chitta Behera
<chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
on
Four
Years of RTI Act and Orissa Legislative Assembly
The RTI Act 2005 is going to complete four
years of its enforcement on forthcoming 15th June. The uniqueness of
the Act lies inter alia in the fact that it mandated all the 3 wings of the
State, executive, judiciary and legislative to remain transparent and
accountable to the citizens by way of providing information both suo motu and
in response to applications. Before the RTI legislation was made, only the MLAs
and MPs enjoyed the privilege of asking for and receiving information on any
matter from any public authority under the governmental domain, whereas the
common citizens were deprived of it as a matter of law. The RTI Act is a great
leveler in the sense that by removing the above handicap of the citizens it
brought the common citizens at par with the MLAs and MPs. As is well known, the
Section 8 (1) which exempts the public authorities from an obligation for
disclosure in specific situations, inserts, however a remarkable proviso saying
that an information which cannot be denied to the Assembly or Parliament, can’t
be denied too to the citizens.
In order to ensure enforcement of the RTI Act
at the level of legislatures the Act declared the Speakers of Lok Sabha and
State Assembly and Chairman of Rajya Sabha as competent authorities who were
required to frame Rules on the matters relating to fees specified in Section 28
of the Act. While framing the rules, they would take care that the said rules
in no manner ‘prejudice’ the provisions of the parent Act. Besides each
competent authority would ensure disclosure suo motu on 17 categories of basic information
within 120 days of the enactment of the
Act
It is worth noting that both Lok Sabha and
Rajya Sabha have put in place appropriate sets of rules as required under the
Act and so also quite many State Assemblies/Councils. But it is greatly
worrisome to learn that Orissa Legislative Assembly has neither made any Rules
whatsoever nor published any suo motu disclosure except the particulars of an
Appellate Officer designated under the Act. Strange may it seem, earlier the
Assembly made a mockery of the provision of suo motu disclosure by copying down
the Home Dept’s suo motu disclosures into its own. After this anomaly was
pointed out by the undersigned, the Assembly authorities altogether emptied
their website of any disclosure whatsoever except the lone information on
particulars of an appellate officer.
It is further dismaying to learn that despite
the RTI Act remaining a non-starter at the level of Orissa Legislative Assembly
coupled with the above instance of gross misfeasance, none of such august
authorities as Governor, Leader of Opposition, Chief Secretary or State
Information Commission have ever suggested anything to the Speaker to make
amends for the same. The Annual Reports for last 3 years (2005 to 2008)
published by Orissa Information Commission carry no mention at all about the
state of implementation of RTI at the level of Orissa Legislative Assembly.
Under such circumstances, the big question
that haunts the RTI activists of the State is- will the newly elected Speaker
of Orissa Legislative Assembly do the amends or carry forward the do-nothing
policy of his predecessor? The Oriya write-up which speaks about all this and some more is available
in page no .3 of this Booklet
Chitta
Behera
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [Com-Con]
Orissa Information Commission screws the Act to favour the guilty PIO
From: Chitta Behera
<chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
on Thu,
Orissa
Information Commission screws the Act to favour the guilty PIO
Here is a case of complaint made under
Section 18 of RTI Act by Mr.N.A.Shah Ansari (CC No.219/2008), which was
misjudged by a joint bench of State Chief Information Commissioner Mr.D.N.Padhi
and State Information Commissioner Mr.Jagadanand on
However, to show extra favour to the guilty
PIO by way of drastically reducing the amount of fine payable by him, the
Commissioner duo in para-6 of their decision resorted to an arbitrary
interpretation of the penalty clause saying, “The State Commission observed
that there has been a delay of 6 days at the level of Prafulla Kumar Kar,
ex-Assistant Engineer, by computing the same from the date the Complainant
exercised his right under Section 18(1) (c ) of the Act, 2005 and proceeded on
a complaint”. A little further the Commission calculated the amount of fine
to be Rs.1,500/- only (@Rs.250/- per day X 6) to be paid by the defaulter
PIO. The logic behind arriving at aforesaid 6 days of delay which can be
made out from the Commission’s decision is the following: the application for
information was dated 10.1.2008 and the applicant having vainly waited for the
given period of one month (upto 10.2.2008) lodged his complaint on 16.2.2008
before the Commission. The moot point arises, does the Act ever say that computation
of the days liable to monetary fine shall take into account the date of the
complaint?
Let us try to sense what the Section 20(1) of
the Act says in the matter of computation. It says, where a PIO “without any
reasonable cause refused to receive an application for information or has not
furnished information within the time specified.. or malafidely denied the
request for information or knowingly given incorrect, incomplete or misleading
information or destroyed information … or obstructed in any manner in
furnishing the information, it (Commission) shall impose a penalty of two
hundred and fifty rupees each day till application is received or
information is furnished…..” . Thus the law is abundantly clear that
the number of days to be computed for the purpose of penalty starts from the
date on which maximum duration of 30 days expires and extends upto the date
when the requested information is finally received by the applicant. As against
this clear stipulation on the mode of computation, the Commission’s aforesaid
observation is a concoction pure and simple.
While deciding on a critical parameter like
the computation of days liable to penalty, the Commissioner duo instead of
exercising their subjective wit would have done well to quote straightaway the
relevant extract from the Act itself. That would have ensured the much
warranted transparency in the manner of formulating a decision by the
commission. But the Orissa Commissioners right since inception have been
behaving as if they are all-knowing Brahmas, and every word emanating from
their mouth or pen is the law itself. The proverb goes, the habit dies hard.
However, the Commissioners being the public servants, accountable to the
citizens for every pie they receive from the coffers of tax-payers have to
change their habit and change they must.
Last but not the least, Mr.Ansari the
Complainant who I know felt aggrieved by the above decision of the Commission
may like to put forth his grievance in the form of a complaint before the
Governor Orissa under Section-17 of the Act on the charges of ‘incapacity’
(17-1) coupled with ‘acquisition of other interests’ (17-3-e).
Chitta Behera
Subject: [OREGS
Watch] Orissa’s Gang of Five pushing the RTI Act on to a cool death
From: Chitta Behera
<chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
on
Orissa’s
Gang of Five pushing the RTI Act on to a cool death
The RTI Act that
commenced on 15th of June 2009 has already completed 4 years of its
life all across the country. While this moment is certainly one of celebration,
it also calls for an honest soul-searching on the part of every involved
Needless to say,
the RTI Act in course of its 4 year long career has amply demonstrated an
inherent potential to make a difference to how our republic and its constituent
organs, legislative, executive or judiciary were governed, rather misgoverned,
with common people remaining legally powerless to question any of them even on
the glaring acts of their omission or commission, corruption or misfeasance. It
is this Act, on the authority of which the recalcitrant Judges of Supreme Court
could be straightaway mandated to disclose suo motu their assets along with
salary and allowances to the public. It is this Act, on the authority of which
the Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI was chastised for its evasive and
irresponsible reply saying that there was no record available on the death of
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. It is this Act again, on the authority of which,
the Ministry of Personnel, Pension and Public Grievances, GOI the national
level nodal agency for RTI Act was repeatedly censured for refusing to disclose
the file notings to the public. In fact, across the country such glorious
instances of RTI Act where the public authorities could be taken to ask for not
acting transparently before the members of public are countless. Orissa is also
not lacking in such creditworthy achievements on RTI front. A left-wing youth
leader Sri Gayadhar Dhal in Kendrapara, by using his RTI application under
Section 6 in 2007 could ultimately succeed in getting a big scam of MP LAD
Funds worth 8 crore rupees audited and unearthed. Thousands of BPL families in
Gaisilat Block under Bargarh district, who had been denied their concessional
rations for months at a stretch, used Section-4 of the Act to inspect en masse
the concerned files kept in the Block office on 16th Oct. 2006 and
thereby compelled the authorities to provide the undistributed rice to the
beneficiary families. However, it needs to be noted in parenthesis that in
these two instances from Orissa, success was achieved due to persistent efforts
of the applicant-citizens themselves, with the Appellate Officers or
Information Commissioners playing no role at all.
However, like a
classroom where one teacher teaches but diverse groups of students- such as
front-benchers, mediocre and back-benchers- receive and act on the lessons
differently, there is a wide variation in the degree by which different
States/UTs have perceived the Central Act and implemented it in their
respective jurisdictions. While majority of them honoured the Act, as a Central
legislation the principal mandates of which were not to be interfered with,
there are a few States, which just like the nutty back-benchers have played
mischief with it. Based upon a recent study sponsored by PRIA,
Going by the
text of the RTI Act, there are in fact five principal actors in a State
entrusted with its destiny- Government (called appropriate Government), Chief
Justice of High Court and Speaker of Legislative Assembly (called competent
authorities), State Information Commission (quasi-judicial body constituted
under the Act) and Governor (a competent authority in respect of constitutional
bodies, a notifying authority in respect of sub-ordinate legislation and a
disciplinary authority in respect of State Information Commission). The Act
provides for a reasonable check and balance between these top 5 authorities
too. If these 5 authorities act at tandem to implement dutifully the mandates
of the Act, there would be little chance for the Act getting derailed. Just in
reverse, if such top five, driven by a fear psychosis towards the iconoclastic
potential of Act, choose by way of an unwritten consensus to dispense with it
they may do so by administering it a slow death. Just as the staunchest
protagonist of a cause has the inherent potential to turn into its vilest
antagonist, the very constitutional and statutory authorities whom the RTI Act
has entrusted as its executants and arbiters can very well turn around to
emerge as its cool killers. And that is what has happened to the fate of RTI
Act in Orissa. Each member of above mentioned club of five has his share in the
game of drubbing the Act, some by way of deviating from its basic mandates and
others by way of ignoring it altogether. If the current trend in Orissa
continues, the day is not far-off when the RTI Act shall be found surviving
only on signboards.
The Oriya
article which explores the role of the
above said five State actors vis--vis a dismal RTI scenario in the State of
Chitta
Behera
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [Com-Con]
Office of Orissa Information Commission- Not Citizen friendly
From: Pradip Pradhan
<pradippradhan63@gmail.com>
on Thu,
Office of Orissa Information Commission- Not Citizen-friendly
Dear All
On
In the State of
Even the behavior of the
officials in the office of Orissa Information Commission is
also not courteous to the citizens, activists and information seeker. They
display very rude behaviour and never offer chair to the citizens who
visit the office for inspection under section 4 of the Act. On
Similarly many activists have been humiliated
by the staff of the Commission. Prominent activist of the state Mr. N.A. Shah
Ansari faced similar situation in the office of the Commission. He
has already made a complaint on harassment made by the staff of the
Commission. The response from commission office has come just
clarification and excuses rather issuing any warning to the staff
to refrain from it.
As it is general feeling of the Civil
Society that the Office of Information Commission should be role model in
the matter of implementation of RTI Act. But it is seen from its
performance that it is worse than a Tahasil Office.
Pradip Pradhan
Social Activist
M-99378-43482
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:
"FoodrightsOrissa" <foodrights@rediffmail.com> on
To:
<yuva.bharat@rediffmail.com> and others
Information
Commissioners of Orissa- Mind your language!
As per the Sections 12(5) and 15(5) of RTI
Act, the Commissioners at Central or State level shall be recruited from among
“the persons of eminence in public life with wide knowledge and experience in
law, science and technology, social service, management, journalism, mass media
or administration and governance.” As for the basic statutory
powers-cum-functions of a Commission, these are two, namely, (1) adjudicating
the complaints and appeals for penalizing the guilty PIOs and compensating an
aggrieved citizen who might have suffered any loss or detriment owing to
omissions or commissions of a public authority [Sections 18, 19 and 20]; and
(2) preparing draft annual report on the state of RTI at national level or in a
State, as the case may be, for presentation in the concerned legislature by the
appropriate Government [Section 20]. Thus, apart from other basic qualities
such as a thorough understanding of the critical nuances of the RTI law, a
passion for delivering justice to the aggrieved citizens and courage to stand
up against the authorities howsoever powerful, one barely minimum skill
required of the Commissioners to write the decisions on complaints and appeals
and to draft the annual reports in a concise and correct language devoid of any
grammatical and syntactic errors.
But it is painful to say that the decisions
and reports authored by the Orissa Information Commissioners not only abound in
unconscionable errors of judgment, but also are replete with silly grammatical
errors, not at all expected of ‘eminent’ Commissioners. With faulty use of
words and misconstruction of sentences, the writing itself, be that a decision
or a report, coming as it does from a quasi-judicial authority like the
Information Commission, becomes a source of unwarranted confusion and ambiguity
to the concerned parties and, nay, that of ridicule before an intelligent
readership. It is more so, when, for instance, a decision signed by the
Commissioners but filled with avoidable silly omissions and commissions is put
on the website for display before a global public. While reserving a discussion
on the quality of the Commission’s annual reports to a future date, what are
submitted below are a few samples, four only, from out of numerous erroneously
drafted decisions signed singly or jointly by the Information Commissioners of
Orissa over the
years.
Instances of faulty &
erratic English-
1)
CC No.439/2008 decided by SIC Jagdanand on 17.3.2009
“The State Commission is of the opinion that the information post
led by the PIO has to considered as an important public interface point and
should not be the made void at any point of time.”
2)
CC No.991/2007 decided by SIC Jagadanand on 20.3.2009 in Circuit Hearing,
Sambalpur
This Case is being heard on two different occasion on 26.8.08
and 19.11.08….. The Complainant today confirmed that he has received all the
information from the PIO which he could belatedly received only after
intervention of the State Commission. .. … As both the cases are self-same.
The case is covered with the case no-990/2007.
3)
SA No.129/2007 by SIC (Prof.Radhamohan) on 4.1.2008
“2.
Form A application dated 19.09.06 was received by the Public Authority on
26.09.06 and placed before the PIO on 13.10.06. This indicates that the
administrative process is not RTI Act complaint. ………
“5.
Since the first intimation was received by the Appellant within stipulated period
of 30 days and also received complete information in the meanwhile there
is no other point to pursue.”
4)
SA Appeal No.7/2006 decided on
Radhamohan
“The Respondent further submitted that supply of the information sought
for will be hit by the provisions of Sec (h) of the Act.” (Is there a
provision called Section (h) of the Act?-
Mr.D.N.Padhi’s infatuation with word ‘Honorable’
While there is no precedent anywhere in the
legal literature of the world that a Commissioner, or for that matter, a Judge
shall himself put the prefix ‘Honorable’ before his name both at the start and
end of a decision signed by him, Mr.D.N.Padhi, Orissa’s Chief Information
Commissioner has religiously adhered to that nefarious practice ever since he
started writing the decisions (For instance, visit http://www.orissasoochanacommission.nic.in/I%20Quarter%20(January%20~%20March)/Qd-13.pdf).
While perusing the referred decision an untrained reader may crash against
another mind-boggler, “Why the prefix ‘Honorable’ is reserved for Chief
Commissioner only, and not used before the names of State Commissioners such as
Prof.Radhamohan or Mr.Jagadanand”. Quixotic sound it may, following a stream of
satirical remarks made against Mr.Padhi’s psychotic engagement with the prefix
‘Honorable’, he dropped the prefix at the signature line, but maintains to this
day its retention at the top of the decision (For a sample, visit http://www.orissasoochanacommission.nic.in/C.C.%20No.%20752%20of%202007.pdf).
Nevertheless, as one can see, Mr.Padhi persists in depriving the State
Commissioner of this honorific prefix as before. Mr.Padhi simply fails to
appreciate a plain truth that his megalomania or narcissism renders the whole
of the State Commission an eye-sore to any sensible reader of his decisions.
The present author once in course of a media article called therefore upon
Mr.Padhi either to justify this queer practice or to jettison it altogether. He
was also advised to learn a lesson or two from the language and art of decision
drafting from Central Commission or other State Commissions, or even from
Supreme Court or High Courts. However, Mr.Padhi is a rare human species, who may
break down, but shall never bend down. Even after reading this mail, I am sure,
Mr.Padhi shall maintain his elemental bravado.
(The article in Oriya which is a brief
exposition on the cerebral anomalies of abovementioned kinds of Orissa
Information Commissioners is available in the Page no. 5
of this Booklet)
Chitta Behera,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [OREGS
Watch] Orissa Information Commissioners- Mind your own business, Please!
From: Chitta Behera
<chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
on
Orissa
Information Commissioners- Mind your own business, Please!
The functions
that an Information Commission at Central or State level ought to perform have
been very cogently and unambiguously spelt out in the concerned provisions of
RTI Act, such as Sections 18, 19 and 20 (clubbed together, these can be read as
adjudicatory) and Section 25 (reporting-cum-advisory) besides the
miscellaneous, minor ones like the referral of a dispute to the Commission
concerning computation of 20 years (Section 8-3) or need for Commissions
approval preceding disclosure by a scheduled agency of an information
concerning human rights violation (Section 24). As regards the duties to
operationalise the provisions of the Act at various levels by way of making
Rules, appointment of PIOs/Appellate Authorities, suo motu disclosure and
monitoring of implementation of the Act etc. these have been vested on
appropriate Governments (Central and State Governments) and competent
authorities (Chief Justices of Supreme Court and High Courts, Speakers of Lok
Sabha and State Assemblies and President and Governors). Of all again, the
appropriate Government has been singled out as the sole agency to carry out an
integrated package of measures for ensuring proper implementation of the Act at
every level targeting especially the disadvantaged communities, who need
extensive support to avail the benefits of the Act (Section-26). Thus the
neatly scripted architecture of the magnificent edifice called RTI Act
prescribes a clear-cut division of functions between different statutory actors
described in the Act. Unless an illiterate in the very literary sense of the
term, one cant miss the boundaries of territories, each assigned separately to
every such actor. Broadly speaking, the scheme of RTI Act assigns the executive
functions to the Government while judicial functions to the Commission. Any act
of intrusion by one into the others territory is therefore sure to invite
disaster to the very vitals of the Act in the land of its implementation. But,
as ill luck would have it, that is what has been happening to Orissa since the
very birth of Orissa Information Commission. The State Commission has not only
usurped the territory and along with it the budgets due of the State
Government, but also, as a legitimate consequence of its illegitimate act, lost
track of the very functions assigned to it under the Act.
To begin with,
for instance, the Section 26 (1) enjoins upon the State Government, mind you,
not the Commission, to adopt a host of measures for awareness of the public and
training and orientation of public authorities and PIOs on provisions of RTI
Act. Four years on, there is however not a single measure that has been taken
by the State Government on this count. Instead whatever measures the Commission
boasts of having taken on this front is, as we shall see a little later, not
only too ill conceived, but also at the expense of its statutory function i.e.
to adjudicate the complaints and appeals. Next, the Section 26(2) of the Act
enjoins upon the State Government, mind you, not the Commission, to publish a
guide book in regional language to help a person who wishes to exercise any
right specified in this Act. Fours years on, there is however not a single such
publication made by the State Government. Instead, the so-called Oriya
publication Some tips on RTI Act-2005 brought out by the Commission is not only
flawed in so many respects, but also conspicuously deficient in furnishing such
an elementary tip as to what fees a BPL person has to pay towards the cost of
information. Then, the Section 26(3) enjoins upon the State Government to
regularly disseminate updated information on such matters as postal and email
address of PIOs, manner and form in which request for information is to be
placed before PIOs, assistance to be availed from PIOs and Information
Commissions, types of remedies available to a citizen vis--vis failure and
violation by a public authority, suo motu disclosures under Section 4, and fees
to be paid against different items etc. However, fours years on, not a single
publication covering the above matters has been out by the State Government.
Instead, what the abovementioned publication of the Commission on RTI tips has
done is to present a highly truncated, skewed and jaundiced version of the RTI
Act in line with the congenitally flawed Orissa RTI Rules 2005 imposed by the
State Government ultra vires the parent Act. Since the said booklet mentions
the mandatory use by an applicant of an 11-column Form-A along with the
attachment of voters card as proof of citizenship, many of its readers were in
fact misled into believing that they were to use it in respect of any public
authority, be it covered under the Central Government, any other State
Government, Supreme Court, High Court, Lok Sabha or Orissa Assembly. As a matter of fact, this
single Oriya booklet on RTI tips has done more disservice to the cause of RTI
Act in Orissa than possibly any other factor.
With the State
Government having sub-let the contract of executing the RTI Act along with the
attendant budgetary provisions to the Commission, and the Commission assuming a
two-in-one Avtar from the day of its birth, the inevitable happened. The
Commissioners ignoring blissfully the adjudicatory functions assigned to them,
exerted themselves heart and soul to emerge as another funding agency of the
State- netting the pliant NGOs as grant recipients, printing posters and
pamphlets, financing so-called Soochana Camps, inaugurating rallies, addressing
meetings, distributing prizes and what not. The net result of all this is a
bitter truth difficult to digest on any bodys part- Orissa Commission, though
most expensive among all State Commissions in so far as its annual budget is
concerned, is by far the lowest performing one in respect of its primary,
statutory function i.e. adjudication of complaints and appeals lodged by the
aggrieved citizens.
And in respect
of the other statutory function i.e. preparation of annual reports on the state
of RTI in the State, the performance of Orissa Commission is equally dismal.
The Section 25(3) succinctly lists out the items to be covered in every Annual
Report, such as number of requests for information made to each public
authority, number of denials and grounds thereof, number of appeals made to the
Commission and outcome thereof, particulars of disciplinary action taken
against the defaulter officers, amount of charges collected by each public
authority, exemplary efforts by public authorities to administer the Act, and
recommendation for reform of the public authorities for better
operationalisation of the Act. However, on perusal of the 3 Annual Reports for
the period 2005-08, one would certainly feel dismayed to find that the said
Reports have skipped the very items, which are statutory in nature and instead
freaked out on matters which are outside their purview. For instance, none of
the Annual Reports mentions anything about Orissa RTI (Amendment) Rules 2006 or
Orissa High Court RTI Rules 2005, or about what the competent authorities like
Speaker and Governor did in respect their obligation for notifying separate
Rules under the Act. Nor did the said Reports give any idea about the
District-wise number of requests for information and denials if any, for
instance, at the level of an important public authority like the District
Collectorate. Though it is widely known and admitted too by the Commission in
course their decisions that the public authorities and PIOs across the State
are loath to implement the RTI Act, the Reports however keep absolutely mum
about any disciplinary action (distinguished from fine) taken against anybody
under the Act. Moreover, as irony would have it, the said Annual Reports do
flash glaring misinformation at various places, an outrageous malpractice
punishable under the Act. For instance, one such Report wrongly says that
Orissa enacted a Right to Information Act in 2002. The Reports, each
interspersed with big, big dazzling photographs exhibiting the Commissioners
with eye-catching prominence, dish out a series of blatant myths, obviously in
a brazen bid to please the innocent readers. A conspicuous instance of such
myths is the claim made by the Annual Report 2006-07, wherein it is stated that
61,000 persons visited the Soochana Shibirs organized by the Commission and
38,800 poor from among them filed RTI applications on nagging issues
confronting their day-to-day life. In absence of any disaggregated
district-wise data to corroborate such gigantic totals, how can we take for
granted their veracity? Thus the Annual Reports of Orissa Information
Commission are but well-designed exercises in evasion, misinformation and
hyperboles, least expected under Section-26 of RTI Act.
As for the moot
question why Orissa Commissions rate of case disposal is the lowest in the
country despite the richest budget to its credit, and why are its Annual
Reports by far off the standards set by the Act, the answer is plain and
simple. The Commissioners instead of minding their own business have usurped
the business of the Government regardless of any statutory sanction, perhaps
tantalized by a lure for all the charm and charisma, glare and glitter that the
latter carried along. However, now is the time out for the Commission to play
the alter ego of the Government. So we say, they ought to and must report back
to their business proper.
Chitta Behera,
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [OREGS
Watch] Orissa Information Commission, the big white elephant
From: Chitta Behera
<chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
on Thu,
Orissa
Information Commission, the big white elephant
The RTI Act,
enacted on
Orissa
Information Commission is now staffed with a total of 37 nos. of personnel
including two Information Commissioners. Though the proactive disclosure on
salary and allowances made by the Commission has not followed the norms as
specified in Section 4(1b-X) of the Act, the website of the Commission puts the
total monthly remuneration paid to Mr.Jagadanand State Information Commissioner
as Rs.1,13,600/- only. Further the annual expenditure of the Commission in
2007-08 was about 2 crore and 70 lakh rupees while for 2008-09 is slated to be
Rs.3 crore. It is just a pointer to how much depleted the State exchequer gets
regularly on account of the State Information Commission. Further, it was a
shocking revelation that the annual expenditure incurred by the Orissa
Information Commission is the highest among the State Commissions across the
country.
As to how much
service the Orissa Commission rendered in return of the money spent after it, a
comparison was made with State Commissions of Gujurat and Rajasthan. The choice
of these two States was made because each of them employed only one Chief Commissioner,
and worked on a low-key budget. As against Orissas Rs.2 crore 70 lakh, Gujurat
spent about 40 lakh and Rajasthan 35 lakh rupees only in 2007-08. As regards
the size of personnel, as against Orissas 37, Gujurat employed 15 and Rajasthan
8 only. What was the comparative performance of these 3 Commissions in respect
of the most basic function i.e. adjudication of complaints and appeals?
Interestingly, Orissa figured by far the lowest among all. For instance, in
March 2008 Orissa Commission heard only 18 cases, while Gujurat disposed of 198
and Rajasthan 152 cases.
The moot point
arises, if States like Gujurat and Rajasthan, despite a low budget and slim
manpower, could decide much higher numbers of cases per month than what Orissa
did, where lies any justification at all for the low-performing Orissa to
squander away huge sums of public money after a big army of personnel and
glittering paraphernalia?
Peculiarly
enough, for some quite now, the Orissa Commissioners themselves and a section
of intelligentsia of the State have been pressing for appointment of additional
numbers of Commissioners to reduce the pendency of the unattended cases. But
they should do well to learn a lesson or two from Gujurat and Rajasthan as to
how with one Commissioner in each and that too with a low budget and small
manpower, they have been disposing of much larger number of cases than Orissa.
The article in Oriya which explores this question and much more is
available in page no. 6 of the booklet)
Chitta
Behera
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Pradip Pradhan <pradippradhan63@gmail.com>
To focusorissa@yahoogroups.com
Date
Subject: OIC not to be invited as Guest
To
help the Commissioners of Orissa Information Commission focus on discharging
their main statutory function i.e. disposal of cases, let them not be
distracted by way of appearing as guests in ceremonial events organized by the
civil society groups.
Dear friends,
All of you might
be aware that four years have passed since enactment of Right to Information
Act in Orissa like elsewhere in the country. And Orissa Information Commission
has been functioning over last 3 years and 7 months last. Meanwhile much water
has flowed down the river
Who doesn’t
know, the complainants and appellants are frustrated over the State Information
Commission for the exasperating delay in adjudication of cases, a multiple
series of hearing dates fixed for every single case, extra leniency shown
towards guilty PIOs and defaulter public authorities and more over serious
anomalies in the drafting of decisions? Besides, most importantly, the monthly
rate of disposal of cases is the pitiable lowest in the whole country. To
elucidate the point, let us take the month of December’08, in which two-member
Orissa Information Commission held only 48 hearings (mind you, only hearing,
not disposal of the cases). It has been learnt that the Orissa Commission
devotes only 16 days in a month for hearing of the cases and only God knows,
what they do in the remaining half of the month. Taking for granted their norm,
we notice only 3 cases being heard in a day by the Commissioner duo, which
gives the per day number of cases heard by a single Commissioner as one and
half only. Is it the optimum potential of an Information Commissioner who draws
around Rs. one lakh and fifty thousand per month from the State exchequer
including Rs. one lakh and fourteen thousand in cash towards salary only? Just
to have an impression about a Commissioner’s capacity to hear the cases, let us
look at Mr. Sailesh Gandhi, Central Information Commissioner, who was a civil
society activist before his induction into the Central Commission. He alone
heard 450 cases in the month of December’08 itself. Excluding the Sundays of
the month, it meant a single Commissioner could hear as many as nearly 19 cases
in a day. Plainly speaking, the scale of pay being almost equal for every body
one Shailesh Gandhi equals as many as 19 D.N.Padhis or 19 Jagadanands.
Compared with
other State Commissions, Orissa Information Commission figured poorest amongst
all. Taking a random instance, in the month of March 2008, Orissa Commission
heard only 18 cases while Gujurat Commission 198 and Rajasthan Commission 152
cases.
What transpires
from all this? The arbitrary decision by the Commission to earmark only 16 days
in a month to be used for their most important statutory function such as
adjudication of cases coupled with stark inefficiency of each Commissioner has
greatly dampened the rate of disposal of the cases by the Orissa Information
Commission. Now, at a conservative estimate, more than 5000 cases is pending at
the level of the Orissa Commission. Given the current snarl-up of pending cases
occasioned thanks to the legal illiteracy and habitual lethargy of the
Commissioners, God knows, if anybody, even if deeply aggrieved by the PIOs and
public authorities shall ever feel willing in future to knock at the door of
the Commission seeking justice over his complaint or appeal.
An enquiry as to
what the Orissa Commissioners have been doing during the remaining 14 days of
every month, it was revealed that they were busy around such non-statutory
exercises like inauguration of this ceremony or that, and address to this
seminar or that as its Chief Guest or Chief Speaker, each held with
eye-dazzling extravaganza. And it may look further disconcerting that such
high-profile ceremonial events were funded from the Commission’s budget itself
in the name of grants-in-aid to the NGOs for conduction of so-called awareness
camps and campaigns. Still there is another spicy catch in the telltale story
of Commission-orchestrated awareness campaign. They lavishly funded those
hand-picked NGOs, who could chant an unqualified ‘Jai Ho’ in public for them,
so that the Commission’s glaring failure on the statutory front i.e. redressal
of complaints and appeals, could be glossed over by the glamour and glitz of
the glittering ceremonies and thunderous drum-beat by an army of overacting
sycophants, paradoxically, all in the name of RTI awareness.
As irony would
have it, the Orissa Information Commissioners, with a deliberate motive to
cover up their own inefficiency and misfeasance, have fanned out a peculiar
feeler across the intelligentsia of the State saying that Orissa needs more
Information Commissioners like the Central Commission or some State
Commissions, so as to effectively reduce the ever piling backlog of complaints
and appeals. While saying so they of course keep carefully tight-lipped about
any comparison between the rate of disposal by them and that by other
Commissions. Because the people might ask them, “If State Commissions of
Gujurat and Rajasthan, each staffed with only a single Commissioner and a few
employees and funded with a very low budget could dispose of 198 and 152 cases
respectively in a single month i.e. March 2008, why is it that Orissa’s two
Commissioners armed with as many as 37 nos. of staff (just equal to the staff
strength of Central Commission) couldn’t rise above a miniscule i.e. only 18?”
The experience of Central and other State Commissions shows that the quantity
and quality of the decisions doesn’t depend upon the number of Commissioners,
amount of financial allocations and much less on the size of the staff
strength, but on the degree of scrupulous adherence to the mandate of the Act,
focus on the statutory functions, level of efficiency and above all an
overriding concern for delivering swift and proper justice to the aggrieved
citizens.
It is not that
the Orissa Commissioners don’t know about this home truth. But now-a-days they
take the plea, “We don’t go out on our own to celebrations and ceremonies
leaving our statutory function; rather it is the civil society groups who
invite us to their functions. How can we refuse?” In fact, this is the last
refuge of the willful deviant.
Pradip Pradhan
M-99378-43482
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [Com-Con]
Governor, the ringleader in the gang of five in gagging RTI Act in Orissa
From: Chitta Behera
<chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
on
Governor, the ringleader in the gang of five in gagging RTI Act in
Orissa
Going by the
letter of the Act, we expected the Governor of Orissa to play the kingpin in
ushering-in of a full-fledged RTI regime in the State by way of chasing other
four key
First, as a
public authority itself within the meaning of Sec-2 (h) the Governor Orissa
ought to have made adequate disclosure suo motu of 17 categories of information
about his own office by 12th of Oct. 2005, the deadline prescribed
under Sec-4(1b) but long past. While his counterparts in States like Andhra,
Tamilnadu,
Second, the
Governor being a competent authority within the meaning of Sec-2(e-iv) in
respect of the constitutional bodies like State Tribes Advisory Council, State
Finance Commission and State Election Commission should have notified within a
reasonable time frame the appropriate kind of Rules for them as required under
Sec-28. However, till date no such special Rules framed by the office of
Governor Orissa have ever seen the light of the day.
Third, as per
the time-honored constitutional practice in every State of India, the Rules
under an Act, be it framed by the State Government or by a competent authority
like Speaker of State Assembly or Chief Justice of High Court gets notified in
the official Gazette only By the Order of Governor. Needless to reiterate, the
Governor ought to check for accuracy in language and conformity to the mandate
of law before ordering the notification of any such Rules in the official
gazette. But in case of Orissa the Governor was found to blindly endorse for
incorporation into the Gazette whatever rubbish came from State Government or
even from a celebrated competent authority like Orissa High Court. For
instance, the Rule-2(1-c) of Orissa RTI Rules 2005 (http://www.orissa.gov.in/i&pr/rti-rule.pdf) while defining
fee pours out a horrendous non-sense, the like of which one cant find in any
legal literature of the world. One more instance, which would simply cause a
life-time abhorrence in a citizen towards RTI Act is worth citing i.e. Orissa
High Court RTI Rules 2005 (http://www.orissahighcourt.nic.in/RTI.pdf). In a nutshell, it
provides for Rs.10/- as the price for application form, Rs.50/- as the
application fee, Rs.20/- as the cost per page, each application to request for
a single information, three months time for response by the PIO and
non-response to be deemed as a rejection of the application, to mention only a
few of its draconian features. Shouldnt have Governor Orissa overseen such
puerile and scary stuff before ordering their publication in the State gazette?
Fourth, there is
an eminent competent authority namely Speaker of Orissa Legislative Assembly
who has conspicuously refrained from notifying any Rules whatsoever despite
umpteen reminders by civil society groups right since inception. So far its suo
motu disclosures as required under Sec-4 is concerned
(http://ws.ori.nic.in/ola/right.htm), only one disclosure (i.e. about 1st
appellate authority) is noticeable as of today. As madness would have it, other
disclosures, which were on display on the website of the Assembly a few months
back, had in fact been copied down word for word from Home Depts site. After a
ruthless exposure of the said farce was published in some print-media, it was
erased except the lone disclosure left out as mentioned above. Shouldnt the
Governor, who is the constitutional authority over the State Assembly (Article
174) bother about what is going on there in the name of RTI Act?
Fifth, under
Section 17 of RTI Act the Governor is entrusted with enormous penal powers
including the power to instantly suspend or even dismiss the Information
Commissioners on the grounds of inefficiency, corruption or misbehavior
complained of by the aggrieved citizens. According to a PRIA study conducted
during Oct-Dec 2008, as many as 7 such complaints were lodged against Orissas
Information Commissioners over time, but not a single one was ever inquired
into by the Governor, let alone any penal or disciplinary action taken by him.
The studied apathy of the Governor shown towards the public allegations against
the Commissioners only signaled the latter to persist in pursuing the
self-chosen, cunning game of backstabbing the citizen-friendly persona of the
RTI Act.
That is why the
enclosed article in Oriya depicts Governor Orissa the ringleader in the gang of
five, who were out since day one to chill the fresh born baby called RTI Act
into a state of coma, where you cant call it alive or dead either. This
article is available in page no. 7 of this booklet.
Chitta Behera
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Pradip
Pradhan <pradippradhan63@gmail.com>
To focusorissa@yahoogroups.com
Date
SubjectGross
negligenec of Orissa information Commissioner
Orissa Information
Commission’s complicity in denial of information by PIO to an RTI
applicant (Complaint case No- 105/2008,
Date of final decision- 5.12.08)
Dear friends,
Recently I came across a
Complaint Case of Mr.Biswajit Mohanty (No. 105/2008), which after passing
through a protracted course at the level of the Commission was finally decided
by Mr. Jagadananda, State Information Commissioner, Orissa on 5.12.08 (http://orissasoochanacommission.nic.in/IV%20Quarter%20(October%20~%20December)/C.C.%20105%20of%202008.pdf).
After going through it I felt greatly worried to find that an applicant-citizen
who put in all his strenuous efforts to access some useful information of
public interest importance from a public authority, was finally left in a lurch
thanks to the acquiescence and complicity of the above Commissioner in the
denial mode persistently shown by the PIO of the concerned public authority.
This is just one of many cases where the Commission strategically keeps on
procrastinating its final decision just to let the guilty PIO go unscathed and
the aggrieved complainant despair over his ill-fate.
To begin with, Mr. Biswajit
Mohanty had filed an RTI application dated 28.11.07 to the PIO, Dept. of Forest
and Environment, Orissa seeking inspection of 11 files. It needs be mentioned
here that the Commission, for reasons best known to itself, didn’t mention the
content of information sought for by the applicant, in absence of which it
becomes utterly impossible on the part of the applicant himself or any forum
whatsoever to evaluate the efficacy of the concerned decision, should such a
need arise at any point of time in future.
On 29.12.07, the PIO
intimated the applicant for inspection of the said files, and on
The ground shown by the PIO
before the Commission for not showing the above file was that it was an
in-transit file en route to the Govt. through Chief Secretary, Orissa. During
the hearing the PIO said that as soon as he received back said file, he would
intimate the applicant to inspect it. Maintaining that there was no malice in
the PIO’s response and he would surely comply with his verbal assurance, the
Commission closed the case. Meanwhile more than 8 months have passed since the
date of the Commission’s decision, but there is no intimation, as promised,
from the PIO to the applicant. And there is no mechanism either at the level of
the Commission to monitor the compliance by the PIOs.
Now, certain pertinent
questions arise in regard to the manner in which the Commission accepted with
blanket faith the facile explanation given by the PIO about the particular
file. Why did the Commission not order an enquiry, as it did in so many cases in
the past, to trace out the concerned file, or alternatively issue a notice to
the Chief Secretary so as to make available the said file for inspection by the
applicant-citizen, whose right to inspection is as such sacrosanct under the
RTI Act? The Commission, basing upon the findings of such an enquiry, ought to
have satisfied itself as to whether the PIO’s excuse was right or wrong, and
whether the file was with the Chief Secretary or kept with any other officer.
Moreover, the PIO didn’t produce any documentary evidence whatsoever to prove
his point that the concerned file was an in-transit one. Thus the absolute
faith reposed by the Commission in the oral, unsubstantiated depositions of the
PIO points the needle of suspicion to a persistent bias of the Commission to
favour the PIO in question, who had however, as revealed from the decision of
the Commission itself, defaulted additionally in another respect i.e. failure
to timely respond and satisfy the information needs of the applicant. It needs
to be remembered here again that the applicant, whose application was dated
For more information or
clarification in the matter, one may contact Mr. Biswajit Mohanty, Advocate,
Thanks
Pradip Pradhan
M-99378-43482
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [Com-Con]
Failure of Orissa Information Commission
From:
"TheHumanityHumanity" <thehumanity@rediffmail.com> on Thu,
To:
<common-concern@googlegroups.com>
All-round failure of Orissa Information Commission , Says PRIA
Study Report
Dear friends,
Aware as you are, Right to
Information Act-2005 is so far the best tool in the hands of citizens to ensure
a transparent and accountable system of Governance in the country. The Act has
not only empowered citizens to access the information held by Public
Authorities but also institutionalized an independent, autonomous grievance
redressal system vis-à-vis violations by the authorities at any level. It is
the constitution of Information Commission both at Central and State level
under Sections 12 and 15 of the Act. As per Sections 18, 19 and 20, the
Information Commission will function as a quasi-judicial body to adjudicate the
complaint or appeal cases filed by the aggrieved citizens and impose penalty on
errant PIOs for their negligence to comply with the Act. Again, under Section
25 of the Act, the Information Commission is a Reporting Authority, obligated
to publish an Annual Report every year, and also a Recommending authority,
supposed to recommend corrective measures in case the practice of a public authority
is found to deviate from the letter and spirit of the Act. Orissa
Information Commission has been functioning since last 3 years and 8 months in
our state. Within such considerable time span, Commission has failed to observe
the mandated norms and to discharge the assigned duties in every respect, be it
as an adjudicating Authority, Reporting Authority or Recommending Authority.
A Study undertaken by PRIA, a
renowned national level civil society organization has revealed that the role
of Orissa Information Commission has so far been marked by a horrendous scale
of mess, mishmash and misfeasance on every front. The Study, based upon the
data collected from ground level and as well from the sources of Commission
itself, has shown that the Commission has not only failed to carry out its
mandatory obligations, but also got engaged in a series of questionable
activities, which were as such outside the purview of its jurisdiction and
ultra vires the parent Act.
The said Study is both
comprehensive and focused in respect of RTI in Orissa and covers the period
since 2005 upto the end of 2008. From the standpoint of RTI Act, it subjects to
an in-depth and critical scrutiny the role of all the principal
statutory authorities in Orissa, such as Information Commission, office of
Governor, Speaker of Orissa Legislative Assembly, Orissa High Court, I&PR
Dept. (nodal agency) and above all State Government to find out how far they
have stood upto their mandatory obligations. As one reads it on, he or she is
shall surely get taken aback to learn, how the executive (State Government),
judiciary (Chief Justice Orissa High Court) and legislature of our State
(Orissa Legislative Assembly) are hell-bent to give a silent burial to the RTI
Act, the most progressive piece of legislation in our country’s history, and
more pathetically, how Orissa Information Commission, supposed to act as its
custodian of last resort, violates it with impunity and connives with others in
doing the same.
Besides, the said study, in its
trouble-shooting exercises, does also proffer a bunch of recommendations to
each such statutory authority on what they ought to do in their respective
domains by way of amends to drag back the RTI Act to its trajectory proper.
I request all the activists,
and everybody whosoever feel worried over the fragile state of RTI that Orissa
is passing through, to scan the above Study, which has in fact been carried out
by a collective effort of some civil society groups, sponsored by PRIA. To get
a copy of the study report, Mr. Ranjan Rout, State
Representative, PRIA can be contacted at E-mail: ranjanrout@gmail.com,
M-94371-33753.
Thanks
Pradip Pradhan
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [Com-Con]
That’s it ! Orissa Information Commissioner
From: Chitta Behera
<chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
on Thu,
That’s it ! Orissa Information Commissioner
To our pleasant
surprise, it was discovered from the website of Orissa Information Commission
today i.e. 23rd July that they have carried out some doctoring in
the text of the controversial decision with a declaration as mentioned below, “Typographical
errors as confessed by the Data Entry Operator, have been corrected under
Section 152 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.” and signed by Sri
Jagadanand, SIC dated 18.7.2009. (http://orissasoochanacommission.nic.in/C.C.%20519%20of%202008.pdf
). You may compare this latest
version, as it stands following the surgery, with the old version, which has
been preserved here http://www.box.net/shared/hhofiyj0bp.
Now that the new date
for receipt of the application, after the said operation, stands at 22.02.2008
in place of the earlier 22.01.08, with the date of the response by the PIO
remaining the same as before i.e 05.03.2008, at least the eyesore is thankfully
removed. Of course, one may feel a bit perplexed to notice from the decision
itself that an application dated 18.01.2008 took as long as one month and four
days to reach to the PIO. Be that as it may it is up to the
applicant/complainant himself to settle such question, if any, with the
Commission invoking the right of appeal as permissible under Section 19(9) of
the Act. However, in parenthesis it may be mentioned here, while the said
section requires the Commission to mention in each of its decisions an
appellant’s right of appeal inter alia, our State Commission has so far ignored
this statutory obligation with impunity.
The next anomaly,
which deserves to be pointed out in this connection is, why did the Commission
treat the instant case (CC No. 519/2008) as a Complaint Case under Section 18,
instead of a Case of Second Appeal under Section 19, when, as is absolutely clear
from the Commission’s decision itself, the appellant has gone through the whole
stage of first appeal before reaching to the Commission through a Second
Appeal. Not only in this case, but all through it has remained an inscrutable
problematic to the RTI activists of the State to follow, why does the
Commission go for, as it were, a sudden change of gear, off and on, from appeal
to complaint, which not only jerks the appellant concerned but the whole lot of
appellants-in-wait. Hopefully, the coming decisions of the Commission shall
throw light on what is at the back of their mind on this count.
Still another
anomaly, which, properly speaking, is a typographical one but nevertheless
eye-catching, is a serious, but avoidable mistake in serializing the Complaint
Cases of 1st Quarter of April-June 2009 http://orissasoochanacommission.nic.in/II_Quarter_(apr-jun)_2009.html. For instance, the instant case is shown as No.18 (C.C. No. 519 of 2008 filed by Arjun
Pattnaik decided on 21/04/2009 was corrected for typographical mistake on
18/07/2009), while the next one i.e. No.19 is also its exact
reproduction (C.C. No. 519 of 2008 filed by Arjun
Pattnaik decided on 21/04/2009), except the longer title of the
former. Hopefully the Commission shall instantly carry out the correction of
such silly error.
Last but not the
least, as already maintained by the under-mentioned on several occasions in the
past, though Orissa is by far the poorest State in our country, its Information
Commission is ironically the most expensive one among all the State Commissions.
Not only that; it employs the largest army of staff compared to other
States. (http://orissasoochanacommission.nic.in/Details%20of%20remuneration%20of%20officers%20and%20employees.html). Its staff strength i.e. 37 nos. is exactly the same as that of
the Central Commission. (for more discussion, go to the Oriya article at http://www.box.net/shared/jtl8vq6sv9). Do you know the size and composition of the personnel, who are
there in our State Commission solely to aid and advise the two Commissioners in
discharge of their two statutory functions i.e. disposal of complaints and
appeals and preparation of annual reports? They include 7 data processing
assistants, 5 Section/Asst. Section Officers, 1 Legal
Scrutinizer-cum-Sheristadar, 1 Court Master, 1 Asst. Law Officer, 4 Personal
Assistants, 3 Private Secretaries, 1 Registrar and 1 Secretary. It is really a
pity that silly, avoidable errors of data and language persist in the decisions
and reports of the Commission despite such a gargantuan hierarchy of scribes
and super-scribes serving under its command. The Commission needs to undertake
a soul searching in this regard, as much as the civil society groups need to
rake up the issue in a right earnest.
Before parting, it is
just worth congratulating all the civil society activists and friends including
one non-persona Mr.Venkat Mallick, but for whose stimulating and at times hot
postings, the Commission won’t have been moved to make amends, partial though,
so soon.
Chitta Behera,
dated
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [Com-Con]
Orissa Information Commission- Confusing
From: Pradip Pradhan
<pradippradhan63@gmail.com>
on
To: icaisra
<icaisra@netvision.net.il> and others
Orissa Information Commission: Stop playing
havoc to RTI Act & Oriya language
As you might
know, Orissa Information Commission has published a bilingual compilation of
RTI Act 2005 in both Oriya and English spaced in a total of 81 pages. As
evident from the note given at the end of the book, a total of its 90,000
copies were printed as on 28.2.2007. Thus for about two and half years now the
book has been in great circulation throughout Orissa. I did also make use of it
in some of the training sessions on RTI Act, and precisely on those occasions
when I didnt have enough number of copies of our own translation of RTI Act
published by Right to Food Campaign, Orissa, for circulation en masse among the
participants.
While going
through the Commissions so-called authoritative version of the said translation
during the training sessions, I felt simply wonder-struck and couldnt but yell,
What a none-sense. With no ready alternative at hand, I had to instantly
dictate the corrections to the participants for noting down at the appropriate
places of the Oriya text, sans which the training session couldnt have
proceeded even a bit further. Since then I have made it a non-negotiable point
for the participants not to make use of the Commissions book on RTI Act at all,
lest it would confuse them, me and all around not only about the Act, but also
about ancient Oriya language.
In fact, a whole
treatise can be produced on the numerous fatal flaws that stalk the pages of
the Commissions Oriya publication. But considering the limited space available
here I would cite only a couple of instances, and that too from one Section
only, just to illustrate how the said publication suffers from absurdity para
excellence and how a meticulous reader, if he reposes an innate faith, which
one should of course have in relation to a statutory authority like the
Commission, in the authenticity of all that which emanates from its
dispensation, he is sure to contract a gluttony of false and misleading
information punishable under RTI Act by the Commission itself.
Example-1:
Please go to lines 2 &3 under Section-18(1-a) on page-27 of the Oriya
booklet. In the very place, where the ex-pressions Central Public Information
Officer or State Public Information Officer should have been there, you would
find Oriya equivalents of Central Information Commissioner or State Information
Commissioner. As a result of such erratic translation, a reader would be misled
to believe as if the Central or State Information Commissioner is duty bound to
receive an application for information from an applicant directly, failing
which an applicant is entitled to lodge a Complaint directly before the
Commission under Section 18.
Example-2:
Please go to Section 18(2) on the next Page i.e. 28. In the very place, where
such ex-pressions as Central Information Commission or State Information
Commission should have been there, you would find Oriya equivalents of Central
Information Commissioner or State Information Commissioner. Needless to say, in
legal parlance there is a hell and heaven gap between these two sets of
ex-pressions. An honest reader would be misled to believe, as if the Central or
State Information Commissioner is the sole authority to decide if there existed
a ground for enquiry into a matter or not, and in the reverse, as if the Chief
Commissioner or Commission itself didnt matter at all.
Now it is upto
Orissa Information Commission and RTI loving Orissas citizenry at large to
quickly but carefully scan the pages of the so-called authoritative Oriya
translation of RTI Act to discover for themselves if there be further errors of
the above or other types in the rest of the book.
A pertinent
question may arise here, whether the State Commission was apprised on the gross
errors of the above kind affecting its Oriya translation of RTI Act? The answer
is an emphatic Yes. In a bilingual booklet published as early as
Whatever might
be the reason for Commissions decision to publish a defective Oriya translation
of RTI Act 2005, it has already wrought great damage not only to the cause of
RTI Act but also to Oriya language itself. It seems the persons including the
Commissioners themselves who might have vetted the decision to go for printing
of the said translation into 90 thousand copies at one go, were little
concerned with the negative fall-out it would possibly generate on fronts of
both RTI Act and Oriya language.
Be that as it
may, as for now, the Commission should instantly stop further circulation of
its defective translation of RTI Act, issue a public apology in mass media and
on its website for having circulated such a defective translation, and widely
publicise a list of errata of the said publication for the public knowledge.
Moreover, the Governor Orissa who is as such the ultimate disciplinary
authority over the Information Commissioners, should constitute an enquiry
under Section 17 of the Act by a Supreme Court judge so as to trace out the
persons responsible for such a messy treatment meted out to both RTI Act and
Oriya language, take drastic action against them and recover due compensation
from them against the huge loss already done to the public exchequer by their
fancies and follies.
Above all, the
Commission, whose basic two-fold mandate is to adjudicate the cases and draft
the annual reports on the state of RTI, should keep its hands off the financial
and administrative business of publication, be it of a book, FAQ, poster or any
campaign material and leave them lock, stock and barrel to the State
Government, whose legitimate domain it is as clearly spelled out in Section 26
of RTI Act.
Chitta Behera
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [Com-Con]
Seeking suggestion on postings
From:
"TheHumanityHumanity" <thehumanity@rediffmail.com> on Thu,
To:
<common-concern@googlegroups.com>
Suggestions
most welcome on ‘how to make postings without using a strident language’
Dear friends,
Greetings from
“Right to Food Campaign, Orissa”
You might be
aware about a series of postings made by us regarding the functioning of Orissa
Information Commission. Many of our well wishers, friends and esteemed seniors
while commending on the contents of our postings have however advised us
through mail and telephone not to use too strong a language as we did, but
instead make always a sober and courteous presentation of our case. One of my
friends went to the extent of persuading me to try a roundabout, double-speak
style, which the politicians often do. Despite this concern of theirs about our
language and style, we are grateful to all of them, since they have sincerely
appreciated our continuous efforts to bring to the public notice a true picture
of the functioning of the State Commission, which would otherwise remain a
mystery to public at large.
In fact our
postings on Information Commission are not sudden developments originating in
recent days. They are in fact as old as the founding of the Commission itself.
Over more than four years now, we have, in the best interest of RTI Act,
highlighted quite many issues pointing to the mal-functioning of OIC. We have
not only critiqued the Commission through publications and media, but also
registered our protest in public against the messy and flawed style of
Commission’s functioning. In accordance with Section-17 of RTI Act, we have
also submitted complaints on behalf of the aggrieved citizens to the Governor
Orissa demanding an enquiry into the alleged mal-functioning of the Commission.
Since 2006 we have been organizing almost annually State Conventions on issues
relating to implementation of RTI Act in Orissa and role of Orissa Information
Commission. We submitted to the State Chief Information Commissioner, Orissa a
series of recommendations passed in 3 successive State Conventions ( December,
2006 at Utkal University Conference Hall, June 2007, Red Cross Bhawan,
Bhubaneswar and December 2008, Red Cross Bhawan, Bhubaneswar) with a request
for discussion on matters raised therein with a view to ensure an effective
implementation of the Act. So far, we got no response from the Commission
regarding the above.
However, as
activists committed to the reform of state governance through RTI, we have been
organising extensive awareness campaign at grassroots level, with the twin
objective- to sensitise the people on the uses of RTI Act on one hand and to
make them aware about the ultra vires provisions of Orissa RTI Rules framed by
the State Govt and malfunctioning of Orissa Information Commission on the
other. Moreover, whenever we came across an instance of denial of justice by
the Commission or by the Government, say for instance, refusal to impose
penalty against a defaulter PIO or a dastardly attack on a leading RTI activist
of the state like N.A.Shah Anasri by the officials at Gop Block, we raised the
issue with the concerned authorities and on their failure to take necessary
action, made our protest against their callousness loud through media.
As regards the
objection raised by some quarters against our use of strong and sharp language,
I wish to make it clear that on each occasion we tried to use such language as
we felt adequate and effective vis-à-vis the point at issue. To cite an
example, which is of course of an extreme kind, no person would ever address a
rapist as the honorable rapist.
Or to take a
very recent instance, Mr.Buta Singh, Chairperson of a Constitutional body
called National Commission for Scheduled Castes is allegedly involved in a case
of corruption but refuses to resign even if there is a strong demand already
raised in and outside Parliament for his resignation. In the face of this if
the members of public use a strong language against him, say for instance,
‘Corrupt Buta Singh, Resign Immediately’, should we chastise the concerned
public as violators of public decency and decorum?
As a matter of
fact, the issue concerning language one should use or not, cropped up very
recently when Mr. Chitta Behera made his posting “Orissa Information
Commissioner– a lunatic let loose”. His posting raised eyebrows of many persons
and drove them to speak out. But the matter is as simple as this. A taxpayer
has criticized a public servant for gross negligence in his duty, for which he
is paid from the state exchequer. But strangely enough, many people took it in
a different vein and went an extra mile to unearth personal motives behind the
strong language used by Mr.Behera.
However, it is
also true, whenever we use a strong and hard language against any authority, we
get many people participating in the debate, and being interested to know the
actual facts. Ironically, the people don’t evince any interest when an issue,
howsoever important it may be, is couched in a polite and courteous language.
And our problem is that if the people are not keen to read a posting for its
too modest language or too polite style, how then to carry forward the debate
on the point at issue? During last more than three years, we have made a lot of
postings on similar kinds of issues, but to little effect, obviously because of
their soft language. Only on a few occasions, we could draw attention of a
wider public on the issues of identical type, and that is obviously because of
the sharp and strong language used in the concerned write-ups. It is said,
heavy and hard objects go deep, while objects soft and light float. And
precisely this is our dilemma.
However, if
anybody can advise us by way of an example, as to how to post or write a
comment on the omissions and commissions of the malfunctioning Orissa
Information Commission, that would sound sober on one hand and hit the target
on the other, we shall be really helped in the matter. Otherwise, we shall keep
on walking the hard way as we did all these years.
Regards
Pradip Pradhan
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Orissa Notification on NGOs
as Public Authorities under RTI Act- Absurd & Illegal !
On 28th Aug. last, the
sudden notification by the Government of Orissa in the newspapers that a
section of NGOs need to appoint PIOs, APIOs & 1st Appellate Officers in
compliance to RTI Act must have surprised many. Not necessarily because it
portended additional and exacting load on their portfolio and resources, but
surely because it gave rise to so many perplexing questions the answer to which
still eludes them. The said notification, though premised on Section 2(h)(d-ii)
of the Act, has conspicuously skipped the urgency of defining and explicating
such critical expressions found therein as ‘substantially financed’ and
‘directly or indirectly by funds provided by the appropriate Government’, as a
result of which the whole gamut of NGOs (be they Societies, Companies, Trusts,
Political Parties, Trade Unions, Officers’ Clubs, Professional Associations of
CAs, lawyers, physicians, and the like) are simply left off in a quandary as to
who shall be considered as ‘Public Authorities’ under the Act, obligated to discharge
the same duties as the Governmental Public Authorities do. Again, in absence of
any such kindred notification by the Central Government, the NGOs operating in
Orissa but financed/funded by the Central Government got obviously confused as
to whether they shall too be booked under the recent Notification made by the
Government of Orissa. This question assumes added significance in view of their
anxiety to know which Rules they shall have to abide by, since the RTI Rules of
the Centre are much simpler, user-friendly and inexpensive (no form, no citizen
identity proof, no treasury challan, no court fee stamps, no appeal fee and no
fee for BPL families etc.) than that of Orissa.
It is further disconcerting
to find that while the then Chief Secretary Dr. Subas Pani had promised to put
in place suitable guidelines before asking the NGOs to appoint PIOs, APIOs and
1st Appellate Officers under the Act (vide Para 2(viii) of Proceedings of Core
Committee Meeting held at Secretariat on 22.08.2005
http://www.orissa.gov.in/i&pr/corecom.htm), the outgoing Chief Secretary
Sri Ajit Kumar Tripathy, just 3 days before his retirement, brought out the
above notification in a hot hurry, that too in the manner of an administrative
fiat, without bothering at all to comply with his predecessor’s spacious
commitment in this regard. Besides the present notification for all its
pretence to serve as an obligatory instrumentality under the RTI Act has not
been framed, as it should have been, following the pre-publication of its draft
in the media for inviting views on and objections thereto from among the
members of the public prior to its finalization, a time-worn mandate of
Section-23 of General Clauses Act 1897
(http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/RPF/Files/law/BareActs/Generalclausact.doc#a23).
Let it parenthetically be noted that the notification of Orissa RTI Rules 2005
(http://orissagov.nic.in/rti/index.htm) had also followed such an illegal
course, on account of which not only Right to Food Campaign, Orissa but also a
veteran national level RTI protagonist Mrs. Aruna Roy in her Memorandum to
Orissa CM dated 23rd Dec. 2005
(http://www.orissarti.com/articles/WhyORulesunjust/arunamemo.htm) had
brandished the above dispensation illegal besides being anti-people.
Conceding that there is a
glaring vacuity in the RTI Act surrounding the meaning of such critical
expression as ‘substantially financed directly or indirectly’, the Central
Information Commission has passed so far a fair number of decisions on the
issue of NGOs to act as public authorities, taking the cue from Section
14(1&2) of CAG Act 1971 (http://cag.gov.in/html/about_legal_dpc.htm#ch3).
However, the said decisions of CIC, if scanned closely and in perspective,
don’t offer us any standard set of consistent or uniform criteria, capable of
being applied objectively across the entire multi-verse NGO spectrum of our
country. For all the honest and laborious efforts of the CIC in the past to
help evolve a standard, all-weather set of norms to determine the public
authority status of an NGO, what emerges as its prime tool oft-used so far is
to decide case by case and each case on the merit germane to it. It is a plain
truth there exists no consensus at national level on this nagging issue. While
Goa Information Commission went to the extent of saying that there appeared no
need for a separate notification to be made declaring NGOs as public
authorities under Section 2(h)(d-II) of the Act
(http://www.rti.org.in/Documents/NGOs%20under%20the%20RTI%20Act.pdf), the Karnataka
Government took a diametrically opposite stance by declaring, for example, all
the Cooperative Societies as public authorities under RTI Act. The latter
notification was, however, held objectionable by the Karnataka Information
Commission following an appeal by an affected society
(http://www.kic.gov.in/nov/06-11-06/KIC%20232%20APL%202006.pdf). The Gujurat
High Court did also issue a stay against the State Government’s order declaring
all Cooperative Societies obligated to abide by the provisions of RTI Act
(http://www.kic.gov.in/nov/06-11-06/KIC%20232%20APL%202006.pdf). While 2nd
Administrative Reforms Commission, keeping in line with CIC’s direction has
entrusted the responsibility of identifying public authorities among the NGOs
to the concerned Ministries & Departments of the Government
(http://arc.gov.in/rtifinalreport.pdf), it however recommended a lower
percentage (50% of the total yearly expenditure of an NGO contributed by the
Government) but a higher amount (Rupees 1 received by an NGO in a year from the
Government) than the CAG stipulated and CIC upheld norms on respective heads
(as much as 75% and only Rs.25 lakh) as minimum eligibility criteria for
declaring NGOs as public authorities under RTI Act.
At a moment when the whole
nation is debating aloud the thorny, but all too inescapable issue of hammering
out a reliable mechanism for notifying NGOs as public authorities, the diktat
like notification by Government of Orissa as made on 28th Aug. last is not only
illegal in view of its abject failure to comply with the pre-publication
requirements of General Clauses Act 1897, but also pathetically out of joint
with the heuristic ethos that marks the mainstream RTI discourse around this
issue across the whole country.
Under the circumstances, the
4-page Oriya article (available in page
no. 8 ) entitled ‘Government of Orissa’s
Notification on NGOs as Public Authorities under RTI Act – Absurd and
Illegitimate’ suggest a 3-point course of action as mentioned below:
- Ensuring that the Governmental public
authorities at every level be beefed up to provide information to the applicant
citizens on all manner of private bodies whether funded by Govt or not, in
compliance to Section 2(f) of the RTI Act;
- Withdrawal of absurd and
illegitimate notification by Government of Orissa dated 28.8.2009 on NGOs as
public authorities under RTI Act; and
- The Government of Orissa
to hold extensive consultation with all manner of private bodies or NGOs
(Societies, Companies, Political Parties, Trade Unions, SHGs, Clubs, Literary
and Cultural Associations etc.) to evolve a consensus on how the NGOs intended
by law can serve as Public Authorities under the RTI Act.
Chitta Behera,
Dated
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Response of Mr. Ashok Nanda to Chitta Behera’s mail on NGO Notification
fromAshok Nanda
<loksamukhya@rediffmail.com>
reply-tofocusorissa@yahoogroups.com
ccfocusorissa@yahoogroups.com
dateSat,
subject[focusorissa] NGO and
grant and RTI
This issue of NGO is a very
important issue.
1. Who is a NGO coming under
public scrutiny.If someone has received money it comes under public NGO. IF
someone has received substantial property will it not come under public NGO.
2. Can a NGO after receiving
the grant change itself to a private company. In this context ,I do not know
the status of Bhubaneswar Club.If it does , then the Vedant University , which
has been given so much of land which would come around 10 cr0re X 6000 can do
the same thing.
3. Government or GO
institutions while making laws have to be very careful. It has far reaching
consequences. And in a time when giant MNCs are controlling our Governments,
any thing could be a strategic step. ( many will of course say that MNCs have
created the Governments with their massive financial advances).
Ashok
Loksamukhya
--------------------------------------------------------
Clarification by Mr. Chitta Behera to Mr. Ashok Nanda
fromChitta Behera
<chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
reply-tofocusorissa@yahoogroups.com
toAshok Nanda
<loksamukhya@rediffmail.com>
ccfocusorissa@yahoogroups.com
dateFri,
subject[focusorissa] Re:
Orissa Notification on NGOs as Public Authorities under RTI Act- Absurd &
Illegal !
Dear Ashok,
1- Yes. Technically it is
called 'previous publication' in the language of Section 23 of General Clauses
Act, that binds a State Government to advertise a draft of the proposed
notification on any Rule or Sub-Rule to be made under a Central Act, in local
media to elicit opinions/objections of the public thereon if any, before giving
final shape to the draft, ready for for notification in the Gazette. But it has
been observed that Government of Orissa has thrown into winds this sacrosant
provision in respect of making a subordinate legislation under a Central Act,
particularly in respect of RTI Act. They had done so in respect of Orissa RTI
Rules 2005, for which we call and shall continue to call it 'illegal' at birth.
Now they have repeated that illegal act in respect of notification on NGOs
under RTI Act.
2- Yes.Very much. In fact,
that is the actual intention behind the words 'directly or indirectly financed'
to the extent of 'substantial funding' occurring in Section 2(h)(d-ii) of RTI
Act. The Central Information Commission therefore in one of their decisions
held 'Sanskrit School' (a public school) of Delhi accountable as a public
authority under RTI Act, precisely for the land freely gifted by the Government
(an instance of indirect finance).
But my principal worry is
that the Govt of Orissa without doing the preliminary work i.e. defining the
key words like 'substantial funding' and 'directly or indirectly financed' and
defining the ambit of the word 'NGO' occurring in the above Section (since it
includes a plethora of private bodies like Companies, Media Houses,
Cooperatives, Officers Associations, Lawyers Associations and the like), went
hot haste in publicising an omnibus kind of notification, which has the
potential of generating a thousand 'mutinies'.
Chitta Behera
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [Com-Con]
Orissa Information Commissioner goes beyond its statutory Lakhanarekha
From: Pradip Pradhan
<pradippradhan63@gmail.com>
on
To:
focusorissa@yahoogroups.com and others
Mr.Jagadanand must remember that he represents a
quasi-judicial authority ‘Orissa Information Commission’?
The news item ‘Tata Steel teams up with Orissa
Information Commission on RTI awareness’ that appeared in ‘The Economic Times’ dated
4.10.09 has already been critically responded to by quite some friends, who
basically questioned the ethicality of Mr.Jagadanand’s ‘teaming up’ with a
corporate giant, which has a dubious record of pushing forward its pet projects
through the behind-the-scene deals in league with a nexus of corrupt
politicians and bureaucrats, that led each time to blood spills of?? common
people, be it at Singur in WB, or at Chilika, Gopalpur and Kalinganagar in
Orissa.
But a couple of questions more fundamental than the one just mentioned
need to be raised concerning the open association and identification of
Mr.Jagadanand in the capacity of Orissa Information Commissioner with Tata
Steel, which is but a ‘private body’ (Section 2-f) or a ‘Non-Government
Organisation’ (Section 2-h-d-ii) as per the lexicon of RTI Act 2005. As is well
known, such corporate bodies are well within the ambit of RTI Act owing to
their enjoyment of a ‘substantial’ ‘indirect funding’ (for instance, provision
of cheap Government land) by the State. In all likelihood, any day such a
Company may perforce have to appear before the Commission as a respondent
(opposite party) vis-a-vis the complaint or appeal lodged by a common citizen
denied of access to the Company’s information under RTI Act. And as the law
expects, the Commission has to adjudicate the said case in a non-partisan and
impartial manner and pronounce its decision accordingly. And mind it, the RTI
law unlike other mainstream laws, presumes the innocence of the citizen seeking
information and liability of the public authority denying information, and that
is why it puts the ‘onus to prove’ (Section 19-5) or ‘burden of proving’
(Section 20-1) on the PIO of the concerned public authority. Not only that. As
both Central and State Rules on appeal proceedings stipulate, the complainant
or appellant may pretty well decide to abstain from the proceedings of a case
being taken up before the Commission, and in that eventuality, the latter is
expected to fight for his case in absentia against the respondent public
authority and punish the said authority as and when it deserves so.?
Thus in the eyes of RTI Act, the Tata Steel or for that matter any
major corporate entity is a public authority and therefore a potential culprit
like any governmental entity, which has one day or the other to comply with the
‘burden of proof’ before the Commission in regard to alleged denial of
information to the complainant citizen. Thus, so far the RTI Act goes, the
ideal relation between the Commission and a Public Authority (be it a GO or an
NGO) is the same as the one between a judge and a potential criminal. It goes
without saying, if the judge be found to be in the close company of a criminal,
the people start losing confidence in the judge, and never dare to approach his
court even when severe cruelty is inflicted on them by the said criminal in broad
daylight. Therefore Mr.Jagadanand in the capacity of Orissa Information
Commissioner, before consenting to join in the public event organised by Tata
Steel and pouring words of appreciation in favour of the Company should have
reckoned with the quasi-judicial position, similar to that of a judge in the
mainstream judiciary, which he holds and for which he is sumptuously paid.
The next fundamental question that needs to be raised is, whether
Mr.Jagadanand as the State Information Commissioner is legally competent to
‘launch’ and ‘laud’ the RTI Awareness Campaign of the Tata Steel, or for that
matter any private body? As a matter of fact, the RTI Act has clearly laid down
a division of functions between the Government and Commission as to who shall
do what. All the activities that relate to awareness, training, publication of
Rules and guidelines and monitoring etc. shall be performed by the appropriate
Government (Section 26), while two major functions, namely disposal of
complaints/appeals (Sections 18-20) and drafting of Annual Reports (Section 25)
shall be performed by the Commission. And mind you, the domains of Government and
Commission are strictly exclusive of each other i.e. the Government can’t
encroach on the quasi-judicial territory of the Commission just as the
Commission can’t and shouldn’t meddle into awareness related activities of the
Government. To make things more explicit by way of an analogy, the RTI Act has
entrusted the Government with all sorts of out-door activities and the
Commission with indoor activities. And such a division of labour seems to be
well-intentioned one too. Otherwise, if the Commissioners go out to launch and
address this or that campaign of private bodies leaving their prime job of
adjudication and preparation of annual reports, for which they are paid, will
not the public interest suffer? Moreover, if the Commissioners usurp the
business of awareness campaign, what shall the Government or its nodal agency
I&PR Dept do? Will they not sit idle with folded hands? In the instant
case, it won’t have created any ripple, if the Minister I&PR himself or for
that matter any top official of the State would have launched and lauded the
RTI Awareness Campaign of Tata Steel.
It is worthwhile to recollect that precisely for the reason of Orissa
Information Commission grabbing to itself all the functions the State
Government ought to perform, the Commission is not only a visible defaulter in
respect of its obligatory, adjudicatory functions (for instance, lingering and
delayed hearings, poor outturn, flawed decisions, silly errors of grammar and
arithmetic), but also a grand fiasco in respect of its so-called awareness
initiatives (for instance, erratic translation of RTI Act, faulty FAQs and
grossly misinformed Annual Reports). And mind you, the Annual Report on RTI in
Orissa to be drafted by the Commission for 2008-09 is already long overdue.
Shouldn’t Mr.Jagadanand the Commissioner along with the elder Commissioner
Mr.D.N.Padhi exert themselves to ensure its release at the earliest instead of
frittering away their highly precious time and energy after this or that
Company, which is again not their concern at all.
To sum up-
- Mr.Jagadanand Orissa Information
Commissioner by his act of ‘launching’ and ‘lauding’ the so-called RTI
Awareness Campaign of Tata Steel and Mr.D.N.Padhi Chief Orissa Information
Commissioner by his act of allowing him to do so have despoiled the august
office of the Commission of its sanctity and legitimacy in the eyes of all and
should therefore come forth with an immediate apology before the public along
with a solemn undertaking that they won’t repeat such a legally indefensible
act ever in future; and
- In keeping with the demarcation of
functions between the Government and Commission as laid down in RTI Act, the
Commission should immediately keep its hands off from the awareness activities
of any sort, the legitimate domain of the Government, and instead devote itself
exclusively to its own domain i.e. disposal of complaints/appeals and drafting
of annual reports.?
Pradip Pradhan
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter-2
Orissa Information
Commissioner: A lunatic let loose!
Subject: [OREGS
Watch] Orissa Information Commissioner: A lunatic let loose!
From: Chitta Behera
<chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
on
Most people tend
to think, only wretched Toms, Dicks and Harries end up as lunatics someday or
the other, but I am the one who stubbornly believes that the population of
lunatics proliferate more among the tribe called white-collar, high-salaried
and posh-profile men attired with
authority and eminence than possibly anywhere else. However, to a naked
eye they dont appear what they are. It is better therefore to call them
crypto-lunatics. And mind you, our state exchequer for all its paucity to meet
the bare and dire needs of Toms, Dicks and Harries, is however resilient enough
to maintain the elephantine Babus, simply because they can deftly hide their
congenital lunacy under the outerwear of calibrated celebrity.
Back to the
issue proper, one may say, Orissa Information Commission is such an ideal
destination, where you have a fair chance to access a full view of the
crypto-lunatics briskly at work and the State, despite its manifest insolvency,
footing the dues for all their lavish gimmicks. A recent instance from the
performance of Orissa Information Commission in respect of their primary
job-profile i.e. adjudication of complaints and appeals from aggrieved citizens
is simply alluded here to ignite the curious minds, who shall expectedly
explore on their own the deeper and wider dimensions of the quest just begun
here.
It relates to
Complaint Case No.519/2009 disposed of by the State Information Commissioner
Mr.Jagadanandon21stApril2009. (http://orissasoochanacommission.nic.in/C.C.%20519%20of%202008.pdf).
The Complainant was a layman Mr.Arjun Patnaik while the respondents were PIO
and First Appellate Officer of the Office of Executive Engineer, Rural Works
Division, Dharmgarh in Kalahandi district.
As revealed from
the decision itself, in response to the application for information received on
Chitta Behera,
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: [Com-Con]
Orissa Information Commissioner: A lunatic let loose!
From:
"Subrat K. Rout" <subrat@hdf.org.in>
To:
"Chitta Behera" <chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>Response of Subrat
Sahu to Mr. Chitta Behera’s posting Orissa
Information Commissioner: A lunatic let loose!’
I know Chitta Babu is an
expert on RTI and I do also admire his concern for the effective and
appropriate grounding of RTI as a person championing for the cause in the
state. At the sametime, I have been following for last few weeks the writings
of Chitta Babu in 'Com-Con' pertaining to the so-called 'Irregularities' in
applicability of the Act in its' true sense and spirit in the state. It is
apparently good in part of him to bring the things out from under the carpet
for the 'information' and 'notice' of all concerned and responsible citizens of
Odisha. However, we all are living in a civilized society. Dissentions,
debates, dialogues, public scrutiny and criticisms are essential
characteristics of a healthy democracy. Nevertheless, there is certain limits
to all these indispensible distinctiveness of our matured democracy in terms of
using 'Terminologies' while writing for public domain. Expression of individual
emotions should not be reflected in such manners and terms that cross all the
boundaries of civic formalities and causing devaluation of individual diginity
of another person or position. Or else, it sounds very much like personal
demonstration of aggression against a particular individual. People do
understand language and intensions behind all articles post in public domain.
My only submission is that being the members of the Civil Society
Organizations, we must be sensitive, responsible and dignified in our approach
and appeal while fighting for a good cause. Apprehensively, I do request all those
write for our public domains (meant for intellectual debates, discussions,
dialogues and dissentions along with criticisms 'for making things better') not
to make it become the sectional battle field for settling individual scores
against each other.
Thanks and regards
Subrat K. Rout.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Mr.Chitta
Behera’s reply to Mr.Subrat Sahu on ‘Orissa Information Commissioner: A lunatic
let loose!’
Re: [Com-Con]
Orissa Information Commissioner: A lunatic let loose!
From:
"Chitta Behera" <chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
To:
"Subrat K. Rout" <subrat@hdf.org.in>
Rejoinder to a Rejoinder
Dear Mr.Rout,
Thanks for the fabulous
compliments, which, I am afraid, far surpass my appetite. Thanks also for
your feedback, though it is more an advisory on etiquette of how to
conduct a public discourse than a response on the substance of the monograph
that I wrote illustrating therein the grotesque abuse of the eminent
authority of Orissa Information Commissioner by its present incumbent. Even
now, if you kindly mail your views on the said substance, be sure,
not me alone but a large lot of the curious readership of
this e-platform would be greatly benefited on the point at issue.
Hopefully you won't disoblige us on this count.
Now coming to your all
too polite dig at my manner of exposition in a public domain like the present
one, may I pick up, in lieu of a summarization, the key expressions from
your critique as follows-
"I have been following for last few weeks the
writings of Chitta Babu in 'Com-Con' pertaining to the so-called
'Irregularities' in applicability of the Act in its' true sense and spirit in
the state. ... Expression of individual emotions should not be reflected in
such manners and terms that cross all the boundaries of civic formalities and
causing devaluation of individual diginity of another person or position. Or
else, it sounds very much like personal demonstration of aggression against a
particular individual......I do request all those write for our public
domains---- not to make it become the sectional battle field for settling
individual scores against each other".
Now Mr.Rout, let
me say thankfully, you have followed my writings for last few weeks on Common
Concern. But for your kind information, I have been writing, and, of
course, speaking occasionally though, on RTI and many other issues
for several years last. And let me confess, and even the casual
readers shall testify that over the years my manner of speech or of
script remains much the same like the one that has troubled you.
Ironical sound it may, let me honestly unfold before you, I have not
cultivated any style of my own except sticking on to a promise that I
made to myself long, long ago- to call a spade a spade and a rose a rose. And I
have every reason to doubly congratulate myself today, first for a
bare feeling within me that I have not wavered from the pedestal
of that promise on the temptation to look 'civilised'; second for the very
fact that it has fetched handsome dividends, if not to me as a
person, but to the public domain at large, with which you, me
and everybody else are and ought to be concerned with. I feel like citing
a few instances here to elucidate the point. More than a couple of years
back, I wrote a satirical article which was published in some newspapers
and subsequently reproduced in a compilation by Orissa Right to Food
Campaign, pointing out how both Mr.D.N.Padhi Chief Orissa Information
Commissioner and Prof.Radhamohan the then State Information Commissioner did
grossly abuse a public space like the website of Orissa Information Commission
by displaying their respective family albums in it. And to the good luck
of Orissa and the Commission, after a few days following that publication the
said website was sanitized and the garbage removed. The second instance
concerned my scathing article on Speaker Orissa Legislative Assembly as a
competent authority under RTI Act, also published in some newspapers,
where I caricatured the Speaker as a monkey on the ground that his website
had copied down the stuff on proactive disclosures verbatim from that of
the State Home Dept. A few months on, it was a pleasant surprise
to discover that the RTI link of the Assembly website was cleared of
the said debris at one go. The third instance concerns my
article more than a year ago on the Chief Justice of Orissa High Court another
competent authority under RTI Act, where I had described him as a Khal
Nayak, who had not only framed the High Court RTI Rules ultra vires the
parent Act but also failed to make the mandatory disclosures suo motu under
Section 4 of the Act even after a long lapse of time. And to our surprise,
it did at least half the job. The CJ after a few months
published the said proactive disclosures on High Court's website,
though the illegitimate rules, sadly enough, do remain as they were
before.
Believe me Mr.Rout, me
apart, a front-ranking RTI activist of the State like Mr.Pradip Pradhan (Orissa
Right to Food Campaign) used certain expressions on the Information
Commissioners of Orissa (e.g. fradulent funding agency), which you may in your
mannerist wisdom hold 'objectionable'. But three cheers for Mr.Pradhan, it
clicked. To everybody’s relief, you won't find nowadays our
Commissioners remaining so much busy as before around distributing funds to
NGOs and flagging off their rallies and addressing their meetings and so on and
so forth. By way of summing up the precious lessons gained from the real life
instances as mentioned above, let me say, the quintessence of a style
appropriate is the one that serves the public good, and not necessarily
the one which sounds
good.
Having
said that, let me come to the instant case where you might have felt hurt
at my famous use of an infamous epithet 'Lunatic' for Mr.Jagadanand,
Orissa Information Commissioner. The whole nation including you and me knows
that the PIO is to supply the information or reject the application within 30
days as required under Section 7(1) of RTI Act. As per
the decision signed by Mr.Jagadanand itself, the PIO sent the
intimation for fees (not information) after a clear lapse of 39days. Then
how come he says in conclusion that there was no delay on the part of the PIO
in dealing with the RTI application? Leave Jagadanand, if I were in
his place, would you have spared me for such a puerile folly? Mind you, the
people of the country and abroad are reading such decisions from the
Commission's website. What impression shall they form of our
I think,
by now, you must have thought to yourself that I don't target any
particular individual as such to demean him in public eye, since so
many individuals including those holding the posts of Chief Justice, Governor,
Chief Secretary, Speaker and Orissa Chief Information Commissioner have become
and shall ever remain my forensic targets so far the RTI in Orissa is
concerned. And again, why should I ever bear an envy, grudge or vendetta
against anybody in particular, when I am not at all in the race for any post or
prize? And when there is no score to make, there is no question of
settling scores against any body. Now, with your kind permission, let
me do a bit of philosophising. The sole striving of my life so far has
been how to grow into an informed citizen. The bottom-line of my schooling
was and remains- While I am not lesser than any President or Prime
Minister (not to talk of a pettier executive like Information Commissioner),
nor am I any way taller than a common man. I have cultivated the
practice of looking upon every common man as my equal ranking colleague,
while on the ministers or bureaucrats or even judges as servants of mine
and yours, salaried to do the prescribed job for the service of the
public, their tax-masters and as well task-masters. Thus you and me, as
the real and ultimate sovereigns over them, do possess the inalienable
right to lambaste them in every manner we are capable of in
public forums for any of their misfeasance in respect
of faithfully executing the law of the land, for which they are paid from
public exchequer. I don't know, where you are presently placed. But I
suppose, you would better agree to a universal truth that more robust
is the public criticism in a democratic polity, better performers are its
public servants. Only in that sense do I feel justified to marshal
otherwise insulting epithets like Monkey, Khal Nayak and Lunatic to
persons in position of power or authority. And driven by a kindred sense,
I hailed in an article the act of shoe flinging by common men at the
political leaders, be it in
Last but not the least, dear
Manoj, granting the wisdom of what you say (civil and dignified manner of
critiquing a public authority), will you kindly exemplify that truism
in reference to the instant case? Precisely speaking, will you kindly show your
model of how to critique the Orissa Information Commissioner for his
elemental flaw in plain arithmetic? Suppose, an adult who is supposed to know
for sure that 2 plus 2 make 4, insists however on saying "No, it is
5", how shall you react? Won't you shout, Pagal ! So do I
say in Hindi, Hum Nahin Suddharenge.
Orissa Information
Commission, Jai Ho!
Commissioners at Orissa
Information Commission, Bhay Ho!
Chitta Behera Dated
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Venkat Mallick
<venkatmallick@gmail.com>
on
To: OREGS Watch
<oregs-watch@googlegroups.com>
Response of
Venkat to Mr. Chitta Behera’s posting ‘Orissa Information Commissioner: A lunatic let loose!’
Friends,
it is very
shocking to see a group created to discuss the OREGS a group meant for
advocating right to food is being used for a planned attack on the Information
Commission and the State Information Commissioner in particular. As an
development practitioner and a researcher it was very shocking to see these
discussion doing rounds. Why are we discussing such studpid things?? Let us
flush these ATTENTION SEEKERS who have nothing to do other than barking out of
our system. Some comments on these.
1. The language used is highly unacceptable and sounds more of an individual's
personal grudge against the commission. Development discussions are not carried
out this way. Personal grudges are to be kept indoors and you have no real
business to discuss it in the open like this.
2. Being part of the civil society we all should very well understand that
Government is also a player in the field. Their may be certain flaws with the
setup but if we look into ourselves and the way we work is it acceptable?? MR
CHITTA BEHERA has ever the annual report of your organization carried the
information on the salary you took. FRIENDS LET US UNDERSTAND by just finding
out the mistake with someone is not greatness but the greatness lies in
correcting ourselves.
3. I dont understand Chitta Behera always hinting at the salary of the
Commissioner. The salary is decided by the government and not by the
individuals themselves. Moreover you simply cannot question the salary of an
individual because there has been a typing error by the steno of the
commissioner. Everyone is very much aware of the proficiency of our government servants. Kindly look at the
condolence message by Jual Oram in the OREGS group. Our so called leaders have
failed then why the commissioner. A mere typing error cannot be the ground to
question
someones competence. Kindly look at your own website Mr Behera (www.chitta behera.com) in the first page itself
your OFFICIAL NAME ADDRESS happens to be chitta behera. I have never seen such
a great lunatic whose address could be his name. correct youself first
before raising your hand at others. You
should look more holistically rather than spending so much of your valuable
time in going through the documents of the commission to find out a wrongly
typed word.. YOU REQUIRE APPRECIATION FOR THIS KIND OF INVALUABLE WORK. You are
the
right person to train our teachers who miss out many of the spelling error of
the students while evaluating their answer papers.
4. Development discussion is only acceptable when it is healthy and
constructive. why dont the group put all the findings into a report and discuss
it with the Commission. Just by sending mails to take out one's personal grudge
simply CANNOT BE ACCEPTED. DEVELOPMENT ETHICS IS VIOLATED.
5. Orissa has a number of other commissions which have performed much poorly
than the Information Commission. IC which is a very new institution may need
time to set right itself. Friend as the group has been created for a purpose
let us more focus on the Right to Work of
the people and the commission concerned. If anyone has gone through the annual
report of the SHRC you will find errors in almost every page. Friends let us
look at other institutions and their functioning as they are of grave concern.
6. Let us not
utilize the space for giving the LUNATICS a place to vent out their grudges.
It is rightly said A dog barks when it is unable to reach the piece of bone
kept on a table.
Let us look at functioning of the Human Rights Commission, the SC/ST commission
instead. The institutions which are in total a burden to the government and the
citizens of Orissa.
Let us have more constructive and meaningful discussions.
VENKAT
Development Practitioner
------------------------------------------------------
Mr.Chitta
Behera’s reply to Mr.Venkat on ‘Orissa
Information Commissioner: A lunatic let loose!’
Subject: [OREGS
Watch] Re: Beware of Lunatics
From: Chitta Behera
<chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
on
To:
oregs-watch@googlegroups.com
Dear Venkat,
Hopefully I know
you. Were you associated with OPDSC, when I visited Rayagada in connection with
an RTI Workshop and again later when I had been to Antoday, Bhavanipatana in
connection with an evaluation? If not, let you be as you are. First, I thank
you for reminding me about a syntactical error in my website, about which I
knew and told the web-designer quite sometime for correction. Now that you have
reminded me, I shall re-remind him about the urgency of the matter. Secondly,
far from feeling otherwise, I relish your epithet lunatic directed at me, since
many people for many reasons have been calling me so, some fondly while others
with a rage temporary though, since my early adolescence. Next, as for your
concern as to why the stupid stuff produced by me is stacked to a valuable
web-space like that of the present e-platform, I wont be surprised to see that
happening someday to my stuff, since I had enough of such experience in a
fairly controversial bio-graph of mine spanning decades. In fact, to my pleasure,
a few days back I got a rejoinder from Mr.Subratat Rout in response to my
notorious mail on the lunacy of the State Information Commissioner, and he had
also raised some such concerns as yours are. And I promptly wrote a response
back to the Common Concern, where Mr.Rout had circulated his rejoinder. Instead
of labouring again over the said concerns, I feel it convenient for both you
and me to reproduce below that mail and the said response of mine captioned,
Rejoinder to a Rejoinder.
However, I on
reading your reaction got posted with an altogether new concern, with which I
thought it wise to deal here at some length. It appears in Point no.4 of your mail, Development discussion is only
acceptable when it is healthy and constructive. why dont the group put all the
findings into a report and discuss it with the Commission. Just by sending
mails to take out one's personal grudge simply CANNOT BE ACCEPTED. DEVELOPMENT
ETHICS IS VIOLATED. In fact, me and my colleagues of Orissa Campaign for Right
to Information (www.orissarti.com) do exactly believe what you profess to
believe here i.e. the need for discussion with the Commission on findings of
their omissions and commissions if any, before making them public on an
e-platform like the present one. It would certainly gladden you to know that we
did exactly that very thing which you now seem to be underlining. For instance,
A Report on Study Findings on Standard
and Quality of Decisions of Orissa State Information Commission was published
by Right to Food Campaign, Orissa in March 2008, supported jointly by
Mr.Dhananda Mishra (Aid
As regards the
kind of words used in my mail, which you found unacceptable and reflective of
personal grudge and deserving therefore of an instant and complete flush-out
from OREGS platform, I have, as already mentioned, dealt with it in the
Rejoinder to a Rejoinder. So no repetition of the same is necessary here.
However, I cant resist the temptation of adding an observation or two on your
presumption that I am one attention seeker, who has nothing to do other than
barking out. Yes. Indeed, I am so from my early adolescence, and God bless Bill
Gates and Microsoft Corporation co-founded by him, but for whose epoch-making
contribution called Internet Explorer, a lunatic and do-nothing person like me
wont be able to dish out his stuff however eccentric just as the real-world
celebrities, a Hillary Clinton, an Aishwarya Rai, or an Anandi in Balika Badhu
are able to do in respect of their marketable products. And as regards your
presumption that the stuff I write is powered by a personal grudge against the
commission, you are almost true, in the sense that my zeal for any cause doesnt
stay at intellectual level, but permeates my whole person. You are, of course
wrong in the other sense. In fact, I am not against the Commission as such, but
certainly against the Commissioners, who, out of ignorance or otherwise, have
been weakening and debasing the very status and authority of the Commission. As
you shall learn further from my rejoinder to a rejoinder, I somehow or the
other detest the act of lobbying or queuing up anywhere in chasing a post or
prize, and pray God, so be it for the remainder of life. Thus the grudge
assuming personal overtones is as such alien to my vocation. This is what
friends of my generation know cocksure about me. As regards your further presumption
that I was driven by an ill-motivated urge for searching out every wrongly
typed word from the Commissions documents just to build up salvos against them,
is again, I would say, partially true. Believe me, if a decision of the
Commission, despite its wrongly typed words would have delivered due justice to
the aggrieved complainant/appellant by way of punishing the guilty officials, I
would have hailed it as the best of English. Since I am a votary of such
indigenous hybrids of cross-linguistics as Hinglish (Hindusthans English) or
Singlish (Singaporean English) or Singlish (Chinese English). But as irony
would have it, and you can verify, the grammar has gone astray exactly where
the justice has been denied. That being the strategy of the Commissioners to
deny justice to the aggrieved citizens, the manifesto of the counter-strategy
perforce scripted the bold slogan on its pages, Mind your language!.
Now, please go
over to Rejoinder to a Rejoinder that carries the real stuff.
Thank you again,
Venkat
Chitta Behera,
dated
----------------------------------------------------
Mr. Venkat’s reply to Mr. Chitta Behera on dated 22.7.09
Venkat Mallick
<venkatmallick@gmail.com>
toabota_ota@sify.com,agragamee@sancharnet.in,abhipani@yahoo.com,adityapatnaik@hotmail.com,
b_wa dateWed,
subjectThe real lunatics caught
Dear Chitta Behera, Pradip Pradhan, Ansari,
Suvendu
Happy to get back to you once again!!
Chitta Behera gave us a very good impression of his
foolishness and the people who supported him in this. Great work done by the
team.
Referring to your mail titled “Orissa Information
Commissioner: A lunatic let loose!” You have questioned the competence of the
commissioner referring to a decision over a delay in 9 days. It is very clear
from the judgment that the Application was received on 22.02.08 and the PIO in
his letter dated 05.03.08 had asked the complainant to deposit the amount and
receive the information. The gap between the date of acceptance and the reply
from the PIO happens to be only of 12 days (a small kid could have calculated
this). That is certainly not punishable under the Act. The PIO should be
appreciated for a prompt reply within a short time. And the Commissioner’s work
is laudable considering the fact that even if the mistake was with the
complainant the Commissioner had issued warnings to the officials.
I don’t know how the so called learned intellectuals
and the so called reputed activists could miss this point. I am afraid that you
need to undertake basic arithmetic course to know that 2-1=1
This basic thing has exposed your foolishness and the
people who blindly supported Behera and made their calculations too.
And Mr. Behera it would not be wrong to say that a
dog cannot be stopped from barking. A real lunatic at loose who accepts it “I
relish your epithet ‘lunatic’ directed at me” “a ‘lunatic’ and
‘do-nothing’ person like me”…
You have done a grave mistake of defaming a man of
high repute in the state and in the country as well whose credentials are known
widely. It’s high time that Mr. Behera and your group stop sending fraudulent
mails which have no grounds or any justifications. Let us work for
strengthening the RTI in Orissa. We cannot let the RTI Act to become a
plaything for a group of Anti RTI Activist who are very much against the
principle of Transparency and Accountability.
Mr. Dasverma, with your mathematics background
could offer the group a basic arithmetic course. But be careful the group
consists of hardcore lunatics who accept it.
My humble request to the moderator to block
the messages of these lunatics.
God Bless You All
Venkat
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Response
of Manoj Sahu, RTI Activist to Mr. Venkat’s mail on dated 23.7.09 in Focus group discussion.
Dear friend
My first greet as a friend even if you are unknown to me. I got
your mail and very much glad
that you are so good in arithmetic. I
admit that there may be some
mistake with Chitta Bhai and Pradip
Bhai. Still you must have patience to finger
them asantiRTI activists. Another
thing I want to make u know that there are many others those who are
also involved in the group
u call antiRTI activist group.
Please dont break-up with my
words as i know mathematical persons usually break-up easily.
Yours
Manoj
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: [OREGS
Watch] Orissa Information Commission-Stop duplicity on website
From:
"TheHumanityHumanity" <thehumanity@rediffmail.com> on Thu,
To:
<oregs-watch@googlegroups.com>
Orissa Information Commission: Stop duplicity on website!
This is with
regard to Mr.Chitta Behera’s mail dated 18th July circulated on both
e-groups OREGS and Common Concern pointing out how Orisssa Information
Commissioner failed to compute the number of days (39 as counted from the date
of receipt of application 22.1.09 to the date of PIO’s first response 05.3.09) and
exonerated the PIO by from all manner of penalty on the ground that there was
no delay. To corroborate his statement, Mr.Behera gave the reference to the
particular decision available on Commission’s website, which many readers
including myself, Mr.Ansari and Mr. Suvendu downloaded and thereby ascertained
the veracity of Mr.Behera’s pointer.
Even Mr.Venkat Mallick, who took exception to Mr.Behera’s critical remarks
on Orissa Information Commissioner in this context, is supposed to have read
that decision in toto, as evident from his admission on OREGS mail before
Suvendu on 22nd instant, “Point of concern of everyone was a delay
of 9 days”. A preserved copy of the downloaded PDF file
of the said decision as signed by the Commissioner can be accessed at
http://www.box.net/shared/hhofiyj0bp.
However, to my
dismay, on receiving a mail from Mr. Venkat (whom I don’t know so far in
person) I checked the Commission’s link to the above decision http://orissasoochanacommission.nic.in/C.C.%20519%20of%202008.pdf
and found its Para-2 reworked and insertion of such bracketed expressions
(italicized) at 2 places made therein as ‘application dated 18.12.2008 (to be
read as 18.1.2008)’ and ‘received on 22.01.08 (to be read as 22.02.08). Though
there is no meaning of the expression ‘to be read as’ under the RTI Act as
such, it seems it has been inserted to show a drastically reduced number of
days from the date of application to that of the PIO’s first response (from
22.02.08 to 05.03.08= only 9 days).
Whatever may be
the reason, the pertinent question of the hour is, whether the Commission can
unilaterally do such afterthought operations on the signed and stamped texts of
decisions already uploaded to the website without notifying any errata in the
prescribed manner? If that be allowed, any public authority, from Panchayat to
Prime Minister’s Office can manipulate the contents of its decisions and
documents at any time and in any manner to suit its convenience and more
importantly, to protect itself from the resentment, if any, of the vigilant
public. As a matter of fact, the above kind of manipulation comes under the
malpractice, namely ‘giving incorrect, incomplete or misleading information’
(Section18 1-e) or ‘destroying the information’ (Section 20), which is
punishable under the RTI Act. However, the Act gives the power to the
Commission to punish a PIO for such a malpractice; so the million-dollar
question for all of us, who shall punish the Commissioners if they themselves
do it.
Thanks
Pradip
Pradhan
------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER-3
Beware of anti-BPL
mindset of Orissa Information Commission!
From Pradip Pradhan <pradippradhan63@gmail.com>
To focusorissa@yahoogroups.com,
Date
Subject PIO of Orissa Information Commission acting
against RTI Act
PIO of
Orissa Information Commission dangerously acting against the spirit of
RTI Act
Dear friends
Mr. Kunja Bihari Patra, BPL card holder of Nayagarh district has
submitted two RTI Applications seeking some information relating to
functioning of Orissa Information Commission on 23.3. 09 and 25.3.09
respectively. In response to both the applications the Public Information
Officer of OIC has sent a letter in Form-B asking him to deposit
fees Rs. 70.00 { Cost of information- Rs.26.00 ( 13 pages) and Postal Charge-
Rs.44.00} and Rs. 48.00 { Cost of information –Rs.4.00 ( 2 pages) and
postal charge-44.00} towards cost of the information sought
for.
Here arise two issues. Firstly, the postal charge fixed by
PIO is huge amount which is not acceptable. Postal charge
towards 13 page information and 2 page information can not be same. It
might be calculated move of the office of the commission
to extract money from applicants unethically in the name of postal charge
or dissuade the people from seeking the information.
Secondly, As per RTI Act, BPL people are not required to give any fees
for information. Section 7(5) of the Act clearly says “ provided
that the fee prescribed under sub-section(1) of section 6 and sub-section (1)
and (5) of section 7 shall be reasonable and no such fee shall be
charged from the persons who are of below the poverty line.”
It means, an BPL-applicant need not pay any fees like fee for
application, fee for information etc. Now, the questions arise even
after more than three years’ of implementation of RTI Act in the state, how PIO
of office of Orissa Information Commission dares to collect fees
for information from a BPL-Applicant. It is generally expected that
the Office of Information Commission should be role model in terms
of implementing the Act in letter and spirit. So that everybody
will follow their path. If the office of the Commission will act against the
spirit of the Act, how the common citizen will get justice.
As I recall, the office of Orissa Information Commission
has recommended to Govt. of Orissa in 2007 to supply the
information up to 75 pages free of cost to the BPL people. The
letter of recommendation has been published in the Annual report of the
Commission. But how the PIO of same office appointed by same
Commissioner is acting against the decision of
the office.
Mr. Patra is an RTI Activist of Nayagarh district. He was
conferred Soochana Shree Award for his outstanding
contribution in the field of effective implementation of RTI Act in
Nayagarh district in 2008. Since 2006, he has personally filed 112 cases
( both complaint and Second Appeal) in the office of the Commission.
Though three years have passed, a single case has not been heard by
the Commission.
Pradip Pradhan
Social Activist
From Pradip Pradhan <pradippradhan63@gmail.com>
To
adityapatnaik@hotmail.com, abhipani@yahoo.com,
aidbihar01@sify.com,
achyutdas@agragamee.org,
abota_ota@sify.com and others
Date
Subject Anti-BPL Mindset of Orissa Information Commission
mailed-bygmail.com
Beware of anti-BPL mindset of Orissa Information Commission!
All of you might have
gone through my last posting about the decision of PIO of Orissa
Information Commission asking a BPL applicant to deposit fees towards cost of
information. This decision by the Commission’s PIO not only violates the
provision of the RTI Act (Section 7-5) but also encourages the rest
of numerous Public Authorities of the State to violate the law likewise for
collecting fees from BPL persons, which they are not required to pay at all.
It is simply amazing that
the Commissioners don’t care to read the very circular dated 27.2.2008
containing inter alia guidelines on this matter issued by the national level
nodal agency for RTI Act (Ministry of Personnel, Pension and Public Grievances,
GOI), which was circulated to all the Chief Secretaries and Information
Commissions in the States including Orissa among others. To read the circular
please visit http://persmin.gov.in/
WriteData/CircularNotification/ScanDocument/RTI/1_69_2007_IR(Eng).pdf About the jurisdiction of its applicability, a footnote to the said
circular says, “The guidelines contained in the Annexure apply mutates
mutandis to the State Public Information Officers (SPIOs). The State
Governments may like to issue similar guidelines for the SPIOs.” On the
issue of fees applicable to BPL families, the Paragraph-18 of the said
Guidelines notes, “If the applicant belongs to below poverty line (BPL)
category, he is not required to pay any fee”.
Accordingly, the Central
Government and the rest of States in
You shall feel surprised to
know that there is no explicit provision in Orissa RTI Rules 2005, mandating
collection of cost of information from BPL families. It is the Commission and
only the Commission alone, which for some dubious reasons known best to
themselves, have invented a patently skewed and perverse reading of the said
Rules to lend legitimacy to their pre-conceived anti-BPL position in respect of
collection of fees towards cost of information.
God knows, why the State
Information Commissioners are so much enraged against BPL families when the
Chief Minister Sri Navin Patnaik himself has been placating them with a kg of
rice at Rs.2.
The recent instance is not a
solitary one. More than two years back in 2006, on hearing the case of Mr.
Rabindra Nath Das, a BPL Applicant from Mayurbhanj district (case Nos- 11 and
12 of 2006), both the Commissioners (Mr. D. N. Padhi and Prof. Radhamohan) had
in their decision ordered the collection of fees towards cost of information
saying that it was the only valid course as per the law. Then we had demanded
before the Commissioners to show the exact section of the RTI Act or even
Orissa RTI Rules, which guided their contention to collect fees from BPL
families. Till today we haven’t got any answer. And we are sure, they can’t
provide any legally tenable answer, since the whole world knows, the RTI Act
has exempted BPL families from all the 3 fees mentioned under Section 7(5) of
the Act. The persons who have difficulties in following English text of the RTI
Act may kindly read its Oriya version published by Orissa Information
Commission. As irony would have it, the Oriya translation of Section 7(5) is
clearer than its English counterpart in the matter of exempting all the 3 kinds
of fees for BPL families.
Maybe, it is a divine curse,
we have a very pathetic situation in Orissa so far the fate of BPL families
vis-à-vis RTI Act is concerned. It is precisely the Information Commissioners,
who, by way of a proper reading of RTI Act, are supposed to protect the BPL
families from imposition of any fee against them by the corrupt Government
officials. But the Commissioners have outsmarted the Govt. officials by
spearheading the the blatantly unlawful practice of collection of fees from BPL
families and thereby robbing them of their legitimate privilege granted under
the RTI Act.
How should we
describe such Commissioners? Either they are law-ignorant fools or hard-core
hypocrites. And either way, they are anti-BPL, anti-poor and anti-RTI.
If I am wrong in reading our honorable Commissioners, let me be
corrected by my friends from civil society groups or by the Commissioners
themselves.
Pradip Pradhan
Social Activist
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Response of Mr. Satya
Mishra to Mr. Pradip Pradhan on “Beware of anti-BPL mindset of Orissa
Information Commission”! On dated
This sort of polemics may
not be the best way of setting the State Info Commission right if it is wrong.
Quote the law and seek an explanation under RTI Act as to why any BPL person
was carged any fee. This looks like a vilification campaign.
Regards
Satya Mishra
------------------------------------------------
On Thu,
Mr. Chitta Behera’s
reply to Mr. Satya Mishra on Beware of anti-BPL mindset of Orissa
Information Commission! On dated
Perhaps Mr.Mishra in his
hurry to brandish Mr.Pradhan as a vilifier didn't have patience to go
through the entirety of what Mr.Pradhan had to say in course of his
elaborate mail except its concluding sentence. Mr. Mishra can check for himself
that Mr.Pradhan quoted 3 sources to substantiate the legal position on
complete exemption of fees for BPL families, namely Section 7(5) of RTI Act,
Circular dated 27.2.2008 of the national level nodal Ministry for RTI Act and
the authorised Oriya translation of RTI Act available on Commission's
website itself. Moreover, most importantly, Mr.Pradhan held that while
there is no explicit provision in Orissa RTI Rules 2005 or in any instrument
whatsoever made by the Government of Orissa to charge the BPL families with the
cost of information, it is the Orissa Info. Commission alone which has
made an arbitrary statement on the issue in course of its decisions
(referred in the mail) without having cared to mention any
corroborative extract from any source. What you hold Mr.Pradhan
guilty of, the Commission has proved itself so umpteen times. But the
tragedy is that enthusiasts like you who should ask the Commission to explain
its position basing on the authority of law, are taking to task the
activists like Mr.Pradhan, who along with a group of
co-activists have been doing precisely this since the day one
when the Commission took an arbitrary position nuanced against the BPL
persons way back in 2006. But till date the Commission has not cared
to respond to the questions so raised by Mr.Pradhan and his group. Worried by
the absolute silence of the Commission, Mr.Pradhan lodged several complaints
against the Commissioners before the Governor Orissa as permissible under
Section 17 of RTI Act. As far as my information goes, the previous
Governor once called Mr.Pradhan and his team to apprise him in Raj
Bhavan about the substance of the said complaints. As well known, the
above Section obligates the Governor to hold an enquiry through a sitting judge
of the Supreme Court to ascertain the truth of any complaint so lodged or
alternatively, take any unilateral action, deemed appropriate, including
suspension or dismissal against the guilty Commissioners. But to date Raj
Bhavan remains as much non-responsive as the Commission. To our
knowledge, Mr.Pradhan has exhausted all the means available under RTI Act to
question the decisions and actions of the Commission which are patently
anti-BPL and anti-RTI Act, but to no avail as yet. Do you know, why the big
authorities like Orissa Information Commission or Governor choose to ignore and
dismiss persons like Mr.Pradhan, who may be vouching for a fail deal to
the poor and deprived on behalf of the larger civil society? It is simply
because of persons like Mr.Satya Mishra (If I am correct in spelling the name),
who without having taken any pains to understand the law of the land and the
background to the campaign for a cause, do simply jump in to pull the legs
of a front-running crusader like Mr.Pradhan by calling him a vilifier. It
is an irony that such types of uninformed zealots who basically serve as
yes-men to the top brass of status quo are there around everywhere among
the Oriyas, immaterial where they are placed now, in Orissa, elsewhere in the
country or abroad.
Shouldn’t
Mr.Mishra have used the objectionable word ‘vilification’, his mail won’t have
invited my reaction as stated above.
Chitta Behera
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Manoj
Padhi <manojpadhi@gmail. com>
Subject: Re:
[focusorissa] Anti-BPL mindset of Orissa Information Commission
To:
focusorissa@ yahoogroups. com
Date:
Response of Manoj Padhi to Mr. Pradip Pradhan on Beware of anti-BPL mindset of Orissa
Information Commission!
This is socialism.
Sometimes, there is huge cost involved in providing
such information by scanning and photocopying. A blanket "free
service" to BPL is not desirable as this will be mostly used by activists.
So a limit maximum Rs. 500/- may be suggested here. Also, this should be free
only when such information requested is relevant to his personal use only.
Usually a BPL person is worried about his bread and butter
and hardly has any time for RTI activism. So, I fear , if a blanket free
service is awarded, BPL persons will be paid few hundreds by current RTI
activists in lieu of information worth few lakhs.
If I were a BPL person and if some approachs me with 1000
rs for applying some information without any cost, it is Rs. 1000 free money
for me. Why would I bother if state spends Rs. 1Lakh for me or not. The
activist who paid me 1000/- has saved rs. 99900/-, by taking advantages of the
BPL free service of RTI Act.
Can the RTI activists explore the above (loophole) is
not happening in states where BPL free service is already offered ?
Thanks
Manoj Padhi
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Chitta Behera’s reply to
Mr. Manoj Padhi on Beware of anti-BPL mindset of Orissa
Information Commission! On dated 10.5.2009
On Sun,
From: Chitta
Behera <chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
Subject: Re:
[focusorissa] Anti-BPL mindset of Orissa Information Commission
To:
focusorissa@yahoogroups.com
Date:
Thanks are due to Mr.Manoj Padhi whose rejoinder offered me the context
for elaborating on an important matter, which I have been longing long for
commenting on.
Your anxiety about misuse of blanket exemption of fees granted under
RTI Act for BPL families by non-BPL persons including some NGO functionaries is
absolutely right, going by a general perception, just as we find non-BPL
persons cornering the concessions legally granted to BPL category in
respect of almost every dispensation, be it Rs.2 rice, Indira Awas Yozana,
irrigation facility under NREGA, land to the landless, homestead to
homesteadless, easy loans, loan waiver, widow pension or old age pension. This
sort of misuse is a big problem in itself all over the country and needs to be
addressed to at a more basic level.
In fact, in our existing system, though it is the GP which suggests the panel
of families to be considered as BPL, it is after all the Block administration,
which finalises and vets the decision to award BPL status to a family or not.
Similarly, the status of landless and homesteadless persons is enquired to and
enlisted by the RI, based upon which the Tahsildar awards the certificate to
that effect. As you shall agree, in our existing laws there is no provision for
penalizing the GP functionary/ BDO or RI/Tahsildar, even if it is proved that
he has favoured a non-eligible person with the certificate, which was actually
meant for a BPL family or a landless/homesteadl ess family, as the case may be.
Let me clarify what I intend to say taking an instance from recent happenings
in the context of Kandhamal, which everybody is perhaps aware of. The
Government has set up a committee to identify the non-ST persons, who allegedly
using the ‘fake ST certificates’ have cornered the privileges granted to STs,
especially in respect of availing Government jobs. As a matter of fact, some
persons so identified have already lost their jobs. However, the moot question
arises, did anything happen to the very officials like RI and Tahsildar, who
had issued such fake certificates, presumably on bribery by their clients?
Nothing. And be sure, nothing shall ever happen to these self-serving, corrupt
and masters-of-maneuver officials, since there is no provision as such in the
concerned revenue laws to punish these officials. Thus, not only in case of BPL
persons under RTI Act, but across the whole lot of public-oriented legislations
in our country handed down from colonial times, there is a veritable a space
wide and open for a class of vested interests to corner the privileges and
concessions granted to the underdogs of society, of course, in collusion with
the officialdom (called ‘public servants’ in legal parlance) who are pretty
sure that neither any law nor any authority whatsoever can punish them on
account of ‘fakeness’ of the certificates issued by them.
As I understand from your mail, you won’t mind a real BPL person
enjoying the concessions granted to him under various laws and schemes
including RTI Act, but you are certainly opposed to their abuse by the non-BPL
persons. Thus, the real issue, before you, me or for that matter everybody, is
not to eliminate the provision of concessions for BPL persons, but its abuse by
the non-BPL persons. As I already indicated, this is a big agenda in itself,
deserving to be addressed separately and in a big way, by way of incorporating
the provision in each law for fixing accountability and penalty on the
defaulting officials, who with impunity allow and even facilitate such
manipulations to take place. In fact, RTI Act is a model law from that
standpoint, where a specific officer, PIO is held punishable in terms of
monetary fine and disciplinary proceedings (Sec-20) and the concerned public
authority accountable to pay compensation to a citizen who might suffer loss or
detriment due to being unduly deprived of information (Sec 19-8b). There are a
few other legislations made in the recent past where one may notice some such
provisions for accountability and penalty, namely Forest Rights Act, NREGA and
Domestic Violence Prevention Act. But these provisions are much weaker than
that of RTI Act. For instance, though there is a penalty of Rs.1,000/- against
any official violating any provision of NREGA (Sec 25), the Act and Operational
Guidelines are, however, conspicuously silent about who is the appellate
authority competent to announce penalty against a guilty official. Because of
such a blatant flaw in NREGA, we find that not a single officer has ever been
penalized as yet in the whole country, though glaring deviations and pilferages
marking its implementation have been pointed out by such top Governmental
agencies as C&AG and NIRD. However, in contrast, we find that hundreds of
PIOs/APIOs have been penalized under RTI Act almost in every State in the
country including Orissa. And that precisely gets the RTI Act going everywhere
with common people enjoying its use more or less. I think, it must be clear by
now as to what kind of legislative reform is warranted to check abuse of any
legal concession guaranteed to marginalized
sections.
Now,
let me come to your next contention i.e. the imposition of a ceiling to be put
on amount of exemption granted to BPL families in respect of cost of
information. Without going into the merit of this particular suggestion, I
wholeheartedly welcome persons like you who at least exercise their mind as to
how to improve the RTI law to make it more citizen-friendly, poor-friendly and
also administration- friendly. And it is very much possible that a law in a
democratic republic should and can be both citizen-friendly and administration-
friendly at one go, just as the penalty imposed by the system itself against a
particular officer on account of his/her dereliction in duty towards the
citizens, as in case of RTI Act, enhances the legitimacy and image of the
system as a whole. You will wonder to know, like you so many persons and
institutions within and outside the Government have been exercising themselves
over how to improve and render the RTI Act a more foolproof one. For instance,
2nd ARC (Administrative Reforms Commission) set up by Government of
India have made some suggestions for reform of RTI Act, such as abolition of
application fees for all categories of people, only xerox charge to be
collected against cost of information from non-BPL persons and rigorous
implementation of existing exemption of fees for BPL families. But does
it mean that the public authorities or Information Commissions shall
immediately put into effect such recommendations of ARC? Not at all. Unless and
until the recommendations, be they put forward by you or by ARC or by
whomsoever, are built into the RTI Act by way of Amendment in Parliament or in
respect of minor matters by way of notification of Rules by the appropriate
Government and competent authorities, these recommendations have only academic
value and may therefore be made use of only for advocacy purposes. Until the
Act or Rules is as such amended, everybody- you, me, Government, Commission,
Governor, Speaker or Judiciary- is bound by what the Act or Rules says as on today.
And here is the catch. Mr.Pradip Pradhan’s charge against the Orissa
Information Commission, as you may verify again, was fully grounded on this
very well acknowledged, sacrosanct ‘rule of law’ principle. He questioned the
decision and practice of the Orissa Information Commission to collect cost of
information from BPL families, not out of his personal compassion for the
underdogs of society, but simply on the grounds of legitimacy. According to
him, the position of Commission violated Section 7(5) of RTI Act; the Orissa
RTI Rules nowhere explicitly authorized the collection of such fees from BPL
families; and the circular of the national level nodal agency (Ministry of
Personnel) mandated a total exemption of all fees for BPL families. In case of
any doubt on the legal position in the matter, the Commission was requested to
consult the very authorized Oriya translation of RTI Act, which has been
published and circulated by it. Above all, the Orissa Commission was requested
to learn from Central Commission or other State Commissions in the rest of
India as to how and why they were unanimous in their understanding of the
relevant provision of RTI Act exempting the BPL persons from all the 3 frees
mentioned under Section 7(5). Yes, it may so happen that a State Commission,
befitting its quasi-judicial status, may give a unique interpretation to a
statutory provision, which may prove contradictory to that of the rest in the
whole universe. But in that case, the interpreting authority must literally
quote the bare language of the statute before interpreting it. I think, it
should be the concern of everyone, you, me, Mr.Satya Mishra or Mr.Pradhan, to
see that a statutory body like Orissa Information Commission decide and act in
a manner laid down in the statutes, and only in the statutes, and be in a
position, as and when questions arise in public mind, to justify each of its
decisions and doings by way of reference to the concerned provisions in the
statute. And to my knowledge, this is where the Commission has squarely and
conspicuously failed, and shall continue to fail so long it prefers to turn a
blind eye towards what is there in the statute or how their counterparts at
Centre or in States are interpreting the statute in respect of fees applicable
to BPL families. Thus, it is not the populist concern for BPL families as such
which prompted Mr.Pradhan to question the Commission, but the over-riding
concern for compliance to the mandate of statute, which in fact should be
everybody’s concern in a democratic republic like the one ours is.
Like some other friends I do also stand firmly behind Mr.Pradhan, who
keeps on demanding a statutory answer from a statutory body like Orissa
Information Commission on matters of our common concern. Hopefully, persons
like you who seem to share some concern for the RTI Act in Orissa, shall do
well to join in our self-inspired fraternity to set aright the extra-statutory
and escapist disposition of ill-informed persons who by a stroke of irony
happen to officiate as Commissioners in an eminently esteemed statutory body
i.e. Orissa Information Commission.
Chitta Behera
--------------------------------------------------------------
From Chitta
Behera <chittabehera1@yahoo.co.in>
reply-tofocusorissa@yahoogroups.com
to focusorissa@yahoogroups.com
dateTue, May
12, 2009 at
Subject Re:
[focusorissa] Anti-BPL mindset of Orissa Information Commission
Further
response to Mr.Manoj Padhi’s rejoinder.
In
continuation of my earlier mail I would like to add on a few observations to
address further to the issues raised by Mr.Manoj Padhi around the provision of
fee exemption for BPL families. Though apparently reasonable, it is not true
when Mr.Padhi holds, “Usually a BPL person is worried about his bread and
butter and hardly has any time for RTI activism”. As a matter of fact, it is
the poorest section of the country, worried as they are about their ‘bread and
butter’, have the direst need and compulsion to exercise the right to
information vis-à-vis the public authorities in whose hands their destiny lies.
Look at any social welfare scheme of the country or
Now let
us examine another concern of Mr.Padhi i.e. huge cost to the State exchequer
involved in blanket free service by way of scanning and photocopying for BPL
families. Apparently, it is a plausible ground for limiting the scope of free
service to be extended to BPL families. But on a closer examination, it has no
rationale at all. The magnitude of both money and morale that State is losing
everyday on account of massive scale of corruption and misfeasance in respect
of every social welfare scheme is simply immeasurable. Moreover, the State is
also losing legitimacy when the benefits of a Scheme meant for BPL families are
siphoned off to non-BPL sections. Compared to such gigantic losses, the
anticipated ‘huge cost’ involved in ‘blanket free service’ to BPL families in
terms of scanning or photocopying is literally nothing. On the contrary, if the
poorest of the poor are encouraged to make use of RTI Act more and more due to
the incentive of fees exemption, they can checkmate the siphoning phenomenon to
a great extent and thereby save the State not only from massive scale of
pilferages but also from erosion of legitimacy. The legislators, who provided
for the exemption clause for BPL families in the body of RTI Act, were in fact
prompted by this superior, long-term consideration. The ‘huge cost’ incurred
due to ‘blanket free service’ at one end shall be more than compensated at the
other end of the
spectrum.
Next,
the anxiety shown by Mr.Padhi that the non-BPL persons, especially the social
activists shall bribe the BPL persons to make use of their BPL cards for
getting information free is simply a hypothetical one. There is not a single
instance so far in
This is
not socialism but rule of law.
Chitta
Behera dated 12.5.09
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Response of Mr. Pradip
Pradhan to Mr. Satya Mishra and Mr.
Manoj Padhi on “Anti-BPL mindset of
Orissa Information Commission”
From Pradip
Pradhan <pradippradhan63@gmail.com>
To focusorissa@yahoogroups.com
Date
Subject Re:
[focusorissa] Anti-BPL mindset of Orissa Information Commission
Dear friends
Let me thank both Mr. Satya Mishra and Mr. Manoj Padhi for
their response to my mail and participating in the discourse on
Functioning of Orissa Information Commission. Mr. Chitta Behera and Mr.
Biswajit padhi both deserve appreciation for their
response and comments to the views expressed by
Mr. Mishra and Me. Manoj Padhi.
The objective
of my posting was to inform the Civil Society, intelligentsia about the
attitude and mal-functioning of the Orissa Information
Commission. How the office of the Commission itself goes against the
spirit of the Act. I do agree with Satya what he has
suggested to get legal remedy through appeal or complaint.
That we have done. But here the question is if the Commission
itself will function like an ordinary Block or Gram Panchayat office,
what will happen in other offices. The Act has given
responsibility to the Commission to protect the Act not to go
against the spirit of the Act. But since
During our
campaign on RTI since sept.’05, We have raised a lot of issues
relating to non-implementation of RTI Act in the state and how Orissa
bureaucracy and Information Commission have joined hand
together to give silent burial to the RTI Act on the soil of our
state. Anybody can visit our website www.orissarti.com to get an idea
about the campaign on RTI in the state.
Mr. Satya
Mishra has raised the issue of suo moto disclosure under RTI Act. I do
completely agree with his proposition on this issue. But Satya is not
aware about happenings in Orissa. Recently, we have done a state level study on RTI with support from PRIA,
As per the
Act, each public authority is required to make suo moto disclosure of
information within 120 days of the enactment of the Act i.e.,
Thanks
Pradip
Pradhan
--------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER-4
Complaints and Memoranda to Governor Orissa
PAD
To
The Honble
Governor, Govt. of Orissa 16.3.09
Raj Bhawan,
Sub- Complaint
against the Chief Orissa Information Commissioner under Section 17(3) of RTI
Act 2005
Hon’ble Sir,
Right to Food
Campaign is a consortium of Civil Society Organisations spearheading the
campaign for effective implementation of Right to Information Act 2005 in the
State.
1) As you might know, the Section 17(3) of
RTI Act 2005 confers the power on Governor to remove the State Chief
Information Commissioner or the State Information Commissioner, as the case may
be, forthwith from his office on 6 numbers of grounds, including the ground
that the Commissioner concerned is ‘unfit to continue in office by reason of
infirmity of mind or body’. Now the time has come when the Governor should
exercise this power in respect of the Chief Orissa Information Commissioner for
omissions and commissions of serious nature amounting to his ‘infirmity of
mind’ and thereby save a statutory body like Orissa Information Commission from
increasing debility and degradation.
2)
Now we do bring to your kind notice the following reasons on account of
which the Hon’ble Governor ought to exercise his disciplining authority against
the Chief Orissa Information Commissioner as required under Section 17(3) of
RTI Act.
Annual Reports
or heaps of non-sense:
The Section
25(3) of Act requires a State Commission to prepare an Annual Report on the
implementation of the provisions of the Act in the concerned State. It says,
“Each report shall state in respect of the year to which the report relates,—
(a) the number
of requests made to each public authority;
(b) the number
of decisions where applicants were not entitled to access to the documents
pursuant to the requests, the provisions of this Act under which these
decisions were made and the number of times such provisions were invoked;
(c) the number
of appeals referred to the Central Information Commission or State Information
Commission, as the case may be, for review, the nature of the appeals and the
outcome of the appeals;
(d) particulars
of any disciplinary action taken against any officer in respect of the
administration of this Act;
(e) the amount
of charges collected by each public authority under this Act;
(f) any facts
which indicate an effort by the public authorities to administer and implement
the spirit and intention of this Act;
(g)
recommendations for reform, including recommendations in respect of the
particular public authorities, for the development, improvement, modernisation,
reform or amendment to this Act or other legislation or common law or any other
matter relevant for operationalising the right to access information.
The State
Commission has so far brought out 3 Annual Reports, each for the years 2005-06,
2006-07 and 2007-08, which are available on the website of the Commission. As
required under Section 25(4) these reports might have already been laid before
Orissa Legislative Assembly. However, if one scans these Reports, he or she
would be simply astonished to find that none of the above mentioned obligatory
topics has been given any minimal treatment in any of the Annual Reports.
Instead each Annual Report is filled with a huge amount of abominable stuff,
which shouldn’t under any circumstances enter the Annual Report of a statutory
body like State Information Commission, such as big, big photographs of
Commissioners inaugurating or addressing ceremonial events, role of Commission
as a grant disbursing agency, tie-up with arbitrarily selected band of
Government and non-Government agencies and imaginative, inflated figures
without any supporting break-up whatsoever. The overall impression about the
Commission which one gets after reading its Reports is that the Commission is a
mega corporate body lavishly funding this or that activity organized by the
chosen government and non-government agencies, the Chief Information
Commissioner is the CEO of this corporate body and Commissioners are the
celebrities of the first order in the State. Whatever scrappy data relating
relevant matters have been mentioned in course of the Report are simply
incomprehensible. For instance, the Annual Report for 2006-07 speaking about
the mega success of the Commission funded Soochana Shibirs held during November
2006 across the State says, “About 61 thousand people visited the “Soochana
Shibirs” held all over the State and 38800 R.T.I. applications were filed
during the period mainly on the issues like allotment of houses under Indira
Awas Yojana, B.P.L. Card issue, Land matters, Public Distribution System etc.
The efforts of the State Commission seemed to have created the initial effect
in a positive manner”. But without there being any break up of the figures like
61,000 visitors or 38800 RTI applications, how can a reader take for granted
the authenticity of the same?
Thus, our first
contention is that the Commission have conspicuously failed to discharge its
statutory obligation to prepare the Annual Reports in the manner as required
under Section 25(3) of the Act, and instead produced so-called Reports which
are unbecoming and derogatory of the statutory stature of the State Information
Commission.
(b) A case of Ominous Silence:
Though not
mandated for the purpose the State Information Commission in the Annual Reports
prepared by them have made abundant mention of what happened on the front of
RTI in other countries of the world, judicial pronouncements by Supreme Court
and RTI movements in other parts of the country. But coming home it has utterly
failed to report, even in a cursory manner, a legislative milestone like Orissa
RTI (Amendment) Rules 2006 which on passed by Orissa Legislative Assembly was
duly notified on Orissa Gazette on 29th May 2006. As is well known,
under the impact of constant campaign by civil society groups coupled with a
strong demand by a section of MLAs the Orissa Assembly had passed the above
Amendment Rules which not only drastically reduced the exorbitant fee regime of
the initial notification but also mandated the upkeep of a Register for
citizens intending to inspect documents under Section 4 of the Act, right of
the citizens to inspect the register maintained applications made under Section
6(1) of the Act and operationalisation of email for making application and
supplying information under the Act. However, none of the Annual Reports made
public by the Commission has mentioned even barely the Orissa RTI (Amendment)
Rules 2006. Not only that. The Application Form, which was amended by the said
Amendment Rules by way of incorporation of the provision for email into it, has
so far not been recognised, let alone put into use, by the Commission. Despite
repeated reminder about this lapse the Commission still continues to display
the older application form on its website. Thus the Annual Reports of the
Commission have maintained an ominous silence about an important legislative
reform brought out by the Orissa Assembly, which is uncharacteristic of statutory body like Orissa Information
Commission. Such ominous silence might be due to mala fide motive or ignorance
of the Chief State Information Commissioner. Either way it speaks volumes about
the ‘infirmity of mind’ of the Chief State Information Commissioner, and
therefore his liability to be removed from the office forthwith.
(c ) Spread of Misleading and False
Information:
According to RTI
Act, the dissemination of incomplete, misleading or false information by a
public authority is a wrong that attracts penalty clause (Sections 18 and 20).
The State Information Commission is supposed to exercise its penal powers
against the PIOs who are guilty of the violation of above kind. But on perusal
of the Annual Report for 2005-06 prepared by the Commission, one gets convinced
that the State Information Commission deserves to be punished first of all on
account of misleading and false information spread by it. For instance, on page
no.11 the Annual Report for 2005-06 says, But before this Act was passed by
Indian Parliament, manystates had enacted their own legislation enabling
citizens to have access to information as a matter of right. Table 2 provides
information about various States including Orissa enacting legislation to
provide a framework to impart information to citizens”. Then on Page-13, the
following Table has been presented-
Source: Page 13,
Annual Report for 2005-06 by Orissa Information Commission
The above Table
entitled ‘Right To Information Legislation in
After going
through the above Report, the undersigned, out of curiosity, applied to the
Public Information Officer of Orissa Information Commission for getting a copy
of the so-called Orissa RTI Act 2002. Though more than one month has passed,
the PIO has not supplied me any information in response. Concurrently the
undersigned also applied to the PIO, Dept. of Law, Govt. of Orissa seeking a
copy of Orissa RTI Act 2002. The PIO in
response informed the undersigned that
no such Act had ever been passed
in Orissa in 2002. A similar response was also received from PIO, Orissa
Legislative Assembly. Thus it is pretty clear that the Commission has published
misleading and false information in the Annual Report of 2005-06. Under the
circumstances, it is simply blasphemous that a statutory body like Orissa
Information Commission indulge in the spread of such outrageously false and
misleading information through its mandatory documents like Annual Report.
Since the
ultimate destination of the Annual Reports prepared by the State Information
Commission is the Orissa Legislative Assembly, it can be safely told that the
Commission has also misled the august House and thereby breached its privilege
by way of dishing out misleading and false information through its Annual
Reports.
The
dissemination of false and misleading information by the Commission has led to
disastrous consequence for several public authorities too. For instance,
following the footsteps of the Commission the State Institute of Rural
Development, a training wing of Panchayati Raj Dept. has, in its training
manual on "Transparency and Accountability" meant for PRI
functionaries, reproduced verbatim the mention about Orissa RTI Act 2002. Thus
thousands and thousands of PRI functionaries like Sarpanchs, Ward Members, GP
Secretaries and Executive Officers who are the target group of the proposed
training programme are all likely to be confused and misled by the patently
false information that has already trickled down from the State Information
Commission to the SIRD via Dept. of Panchayati Raj. Be that as it may, the
Chief State Information Commissioner, who is the principal architect of the ill
drafted Annual Reports deserves to be punished for disseminating false and
misleading information among both Government agencies and public at large.
3) We have stated above only a few cases
of omissions and commissions showing gross inefficiency of the Orissa
Information Commission, especially of the Chief State Information Commissioner
as revealed from the Annual Reports authored by them. If opportunity is allowed
to the undersigned, we can show you many, many instances of such type which
unmistakably point to the ‘infirmity of mind’ the Chief Commissioner suffers
from and therefore makes him liable to be removed from his office forthwith as
warranted under Section 17(3) of RTI Act 2005.
Looking forward
to a judicious act on your part to save the Orissa Information Commission from
further disgrace and infamy, which the Chief State Information Commissioner on
account of his ‘infirmity of mind’ is likely to push to.
With regards
Yours faithfully
Pradip Pradhan
State Convener
Pad
To
The Governor,
Orissa, Date-
7.8.09
Raj Bhavan,
Sub- Complaint
against the Chief Orissa Information Commissioner and State Information
Commissioner, Orissa under Section 17(3) of RTI Act 2005 for deliberate
spreading of misinformation on RTI Act and for hijacking to itself the
mandatory domain of the State Government.
Hon’ble Sir,
“Right to Food
Campaign, Orissa” is a consortium of Civil Society Organisations spearheading
the campaign for effective implementation of Right to Information Act 2005 in
the State for more than 4 years now.
1. During our
campaign on RTI Act, we came across a bilingual compilation comprising both
Oriya and English versions of RTI Act 2005, spaced in a total of 81 pages
published by Orissa Information Commission. As evident from the note given at
the end of the book, a total of its 90,000 copies were printed as on 28.2.2007
by Orissa Government Press,
2. While going
through the Oriya translation of the Act provided in the said book, we found a
lot of misleading information concerning RTI Act being spread by it on
different pages of the book. To illustrate the kind of anomalies we came
across, let me present here only two examples for your kind perusal -
Example-1:
Please go to lines 2 &3 under Section-18(1-a) on page-27 of the Oriya
booklet. In the very place, where the expressions ‘Central Public Information
Officer or State Public Information Officer’ should have been there, one finds
Oriya equivalents of ‘Central Information Commissioner or State Information
Commissioner’. As a result of such erratic translation, a reader would be
misled to believe as if the Central or State Information Commissioner is duty
bound to receive an application for information from any applicant directly,
failing which an applicant is entitled to lodge a Complaint directly before the
Commission under Section 18.
Example-2:
Please go to Section 18(2) on Page 28. In the very place, where such expressions as ‘Central
Information Commission or State Information Commission’ should have been there,
one finds Oriya equivalents of ‘Central Information Commissioner or State
Information Commissioner’. Needless to say, in legal parlance there is a hell
and heaven gap between these two sets of expressions. An honest reader would be
misled to believe, as if the Central Information Commissioner or State
Information Commissioner, as the case may be, is the sole authority to decide
if there existed a ground for enquiry into a complaint or not, and conversely,
as if the Chief Information Commissioner of the respective body or even the
Commission itself doesn’t matter at all.
3. In the past,
we had brought to the notice of the Orissa Information Commission about the
types of flaws that marred the Oriya version of RTI Act, when the Commission
had displayed it on their website. In fact, we had also published a booklet
under the title “Operationalisation of
RTI Act 2005 & Role of State Information Commission in Orissa- Status &
Review” as early as 1st January 2007, where we had reproduced verbatim the
above ‘authoritative’ Oriya translation after downloading it from Commission’s
website, with a view to show by example the kind of anomalies it suffered from.
For instance, we had shown on page 13 of our booklet, how at 3 places in
Section-17 alone, the word ‘Governor’ has been wrongly replaced by the word
‘President’ and how there occurred two different errors in Section-18(1). On
publication of out booklet, what the Commission did in turn was to correct 4
out of 5 errors pointed out by us, leaving in tact many other errors including
the two examples as mentioned above. As a result of such erratic Oriya
translation being circulated, countless citizens throughout the State have
already been confused during last two and half years and many more are going to
be confused in days to come about the actual intentions and provisions of RTI
Act.
4. Sir, as you
might know, as per Section-2 of ‘THE AUTHORITATIVE TEXTS (CENTRAL LAWS) ACT,
1973 (ACT NO. 50 OF 1973)’, an authoritative text of a Central Act/Rule in any
of the regional languages mentioned in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution
shall be published in the Official Gazette under the authority of President of
India. It is therefore presumed that experts at several levels right from
Rashtrapati Bhavan down to Government of Orissa must have been involved in the
process of finalizing an authoritative Oriya translation of the Central Act,
called RTI Act 2005. Secondly, it is further presumed that Orissa Information
Commission before ordering its printing must have checked the Oriya version for
its authenticity in every respect. But sadly enough, Orissa Information
Commission despite having been informed in advance about the defective nature
of the Oriya translation, ordered its printing to the extent of 90,000 copies
at a huge cost to the public exchequer.
5. Further, it
sounds ironical, an Information Commission, which is supposed to punish the
concerned officers of public authorities for disclosing or disseminating false
and misleading information to the public under Section 20 of RTI Act 2005, has
itself been indulging in the deliberate perpetration of the said offence with
impunity for last several years, as if it is determined to rout out the RTI Act
from the soil of Orissa by way of misleading the citizenry about its real
intentions and provisions. To our great shock, the individuals and groups
associated with our platform have been greatly confused and confounded by the
above-mentioned defective translation of Oriya Act as published in book-form by
Orissa Information Commission.
6. Another
pertinent matter that we would like you to address to is that there is a
complete transgression of the mandate of RTI Act in respect of functions
entrusted to Government of Orissa under its Section 26. The said Section
clearly stipulates that any activity that concerns training and awareness on
RTI Act including publication of dissemination material is to be undertaken by
the State Government, while the State Information Commission should limit its
activities to adjudication (Sections 18, 19 and 20) and drafting of annual
report on the status of RTI Act in the State (Section 25). However, it has been
observed right since inception that the jobs such as, awareness, training or
publication etc. entrusted to the State Government have been hijacked by the
State Information Commission. And as a result, not only the State Government
has ever remained idle in respect of functions assigned to it, but also the
Commission has been found floundering in respect of its mandatory functions as
an adjudicatory-cum-reporting authority besides doing a mess of the functions
snatched from the State Government, as indisputably evident from the instant
case of publishing a mistranslation of RTI Act. This functional mishmash
between the State Government and Information Commission needs to be sorted out
at the earliest in the interest of breaking through the current RTI imbroglio
pervading the State.
7. Under the
circumstances, we appeal before you, who is the head of the Sate Government and
as well the disciplinary authority over the State Information Commission, to
order the following immediate measures in the interest of RTI Act itself-
a. Immediate
cessation of the circulation by Orissa Information Commission of the
controversial book containing defective Oriya translation of RTI Act ;
b. Notification
in the Gazette and public media of a list of Errata on the omissions and
commissions in the defective Oriya translation, for the knowledge of the
members of public who might have been confused by the said mistranslation
during last two and half years;
c. An Expert
Committee to be set up to revise the defective translation so as to produce a
better, popularly intelligible and mistake-free Oriya translation of RTI Act,
and of related subordinate legislation like Central and State RTI Rules and RTI
Guidelines of national level nodal agency;
d. An
administrative enquiry into the role of persons and circumstances responsible
for printing and publication of a defective Oriya translation of RTI Act by the
Orissa Information Commission despite the prior knowledge of the latter about
the possible occurrence of multiple errors in the said mistranslation;
e. Exemplary
punishment as deemed proper to be meted out to the public servants so found
guilty, along with recovery of money and interest thereon from them to
compensate for the loss to the public exchequer done by them;
f. Stopping the
Orissa Information Commission from hijacking any further the functions assigned
to the State Government and enabling the latter to discharge dutifully all
functions assigned to it under Section 26 of Act including the task of
publication of all dissemination material on RTI Act and related matters.
With regards
Yours sincerely
Pradip Pradhan
State
Convener
CC:
- Mrs. Prativa
Patil. President of
- Mr. Manmohan
Singh, Prime Minister of
- Mr.Veerapa
Moily, Minister for Law and Justice, Govt of
- Cabinet
Secretary (Ministry of Personnel), Govt.
of
- Mr. Naveen
Patnaik, Chief Minister, Orissa,
- Minister for
I&PR, Govt of Orissa,
------------------------------------------------------------
PAD
To
The Governor, Orissa Date-
26.9.09
Raj Bhawan,
Sub- Withdrawal of Absurd & Illegal Notification on NGOs
as Public Authorities under RTI Act by Govt of Orissa
Hon’ble Sir,
Right to Food Campaign, Orissa is a state level forum of Civil Society Organisations spearheading
the campaign for effective
implementation of RTI Act in the state since 2005. On behalf of the campaign, I
do bring to your kind notice the following matter seeking urgent
intervention and necessary action at your end.
On
On the other hand, in
absence of any such kindred notification by the Central Government, the NGOs
operating in Orissa but financed/funded by the Central Government got obviously
confused as to whether they shall too be booked under the recent Notification
made by the Government of Orissa. This question assumes added significance in
view of their anxiety to know which Rules they shall have to abide by, since
the RTI Rules of the Centre are much simpler, user-friendly and inexpensive (no
form, no citizen identity proof, no treasury challan, no court fee stamps, no
appeal fee and no fee for BPL families etc.) than that of Orissa.
It is further disconcerting
to find that while the then Chief Secretary Dr. Subas Pani had promised to put
in place suitable guidelines before asking the NGOs to appoint PIOs, APIOs and
1st Appellate Officers under the Act [vide Para 2(viii) of Proceedings of Core
Committee Meeting held at Secretariat on 22.08.2005
http://www.orissa.gov.in/i&pr/corecom.htm], the outgoing Chief Secretary
Sri Ajit Kumar Tripathy, just 3 days before his retirement from the job,
brought out the above notification in a hot hurry, without bothering at all to
comply with his predecessor’s spacious commitment in this regard.
Above all, the above
notification is illegal as Govt. has not invited views of the public about the
proposed notification prior to its final publicity in media. Needless to say,
the Government of Orissa by this unconscionable act of commission is guilty of
violating a time-worn mandate of Section-23 of General Clauses Act 1897, which
is a must on the part of a State Government to observe while making any rule or
sub-rule under a Central Act.
In this context, we urge
upon you to direct the State Govt. to withdraw the abovementioned absurd and
illegitimate notification made by them dated 28.8.09 and to hold extensive
consultation with all manner of private bodies or NGOs (Societies, Companies,
Political Parties, Trade Unions, SHGs, Clubs, Literary and Cultural
Associations etc.) to evolve a consensus on how the NGOs can effectively serve
as Public Authorities under the RTI Act as intended by the law.
Thanking you
Yours sincerely
Pradip
Pradhan
State
Convener
Right
to Food Campaign Orissa
-------------------------------------------------------
To
The
Governor, Orissa Date------
Raj
Bhawan,
Sub- Complaint against State Chief Information Commissioner and State
Information Commissioner, Orissa
for violation of section 20 of
RTI Act under section 17 of RTI Act.
Hon’ble Sir,
With most respectfully, I
would like to bring to your kind notice the following matter for your urgent
action.
That, on 27.1.07, I had
applied to the Public Information Officer, Office of Belapada Block of Bolangir
district seeking information on levy sugar distribution, tally Register of
store agent and issue Register for Panchayats.
Getting no response, I filed a complaint case against defaulting
PIO before the court of Orissa
Information Commission under section 18 of the RTI Act with prayer for information and taking
punitive action against the defaulting officers.
The Commission made several hearings on dated
10.4.08, 2.5.08, 12.8.08, 2.12.08. On
2.5.08, the Commission directed PIO
and Block Development Officer of Belapara Block to allow me
to inspect the information related to records/registers and after
inspection, the same will be supplied to me.
As per direction of the Commission, I visited the office of Belapada
Block but could not show all the documents.
However, the PIO supplied me
information on 2.8.08 which are found as false and incomplete.
On 12.8.08, date fixed for
hearing, I visited Commission office and found that the hearing has been
adjourned due to some unknown reasons. I was also not intimated by the
Commission office about this adjournment earlier.
On 2.12.08, the case was
finally heard by Division Bench (both
State Chief Information Commissioner and State Information Commissioner).
Unfortunately, I could not attend the hearing. On that day, The Commission did
not impose any penalty against PIO and arbitrarily disposed the case without
providing me complete information. The final order was sent me by post. Going
through the final order, I got astonished how Commission disposed the case
without giving me opportunity to present my views.
However, being aggrieved by
the decision of the Commission, I against requested the Commission on dated
1.1.09 to reopen the case No 826 of 2007 and provide me the opportunity to
submit all the documents before the commission about malpractice made by PIO.
It is to be mentioned here that a complainant-citizen has right to appeal to
the Commission against the decision of the Commission under section 19(9) of
the Act. Though few months passed, I could not get any response from the
Commission.
Again, on 27.5.09, I made
another appeal to the Commission to reopen the case and provide me correct
information and take action against PIO. Though more than two months have
passed, I have not received any response from Commission.
So, I feel both the
Commissioners have acted against the spirit of the Act. They have not only
violated section 20 of the Act but have deprived me of getting justice. In this context, I would request you to
constitute an enquiry in to the matter
and take appropriate legal action
against both the Commissioners. So that it will not be repeated again in the
office of the Commission.
As I have heard, hundreds of
citizens are getting frustrated and fed up over the wrong decision given by the
Commission in our state. It has become common practice in the office of the commission.
With regards
Date- 12.8.09 Sushanta Kumar Sa
Venue-Patnagarh At/post-Patnagarh(Badapada)
Dist-Bolangir
Enclosures:
- Copy of
decision of the commission on dated 2.12.08
- Copy of
Appeal letter given to the
Commission to reopen the case on
1.1.09
- Copy of another Appeal given to the Commission to reopen the
case on dated 27.5.09
-----------------------------------------------
To
The Governor, Orissa
Raj Bhawan,
Sub- Complaint against State
Chief Information Commissioner, State Information Commissioner, Orissa for
their gross negligence in disposing of the complaint case dated 18.1.08
Hon’ble Sir
I Shri Srikar Behera, At-Kangan,
Post-Padiabahal, Dist- Bolangir, draw your kind notice on the following matter for your urgent action.
That, on dated 18.1.08,
I along with my friends Jatana Bariha (
At-Nagphena, Post-Juba, via-Patnagarh, Dist-Bolangir) and Bhagaban Behera ( At/Post-Bhanpur,
Dist-Bolangir) had visited the office of District Inspector of School,
Bolangir and District Forest Office, Forest Division, Bolangir seeking
some information proactively disclosed under section 4 of the Act. In
the office of DFO, I could not meet neither PIO nor DFO to get the information relating a project
called Banaspati Bana Prakalpa undertaken
in Khaprakhol Block of Bolangir district. I also met some officials
who refused to give me any information
as they were not authorized to do it.
Then we proceeded to the
office of District Inspector of School, Bolangir to seek information about Block Grant
allotted to different schools which comes under section 4 of the Act. We found
the absence of PIO in the office. We could not get the information. There was
also no display board on RTI in the
office.
Finding no information from
the both the office, we lodged a complaint
to the State Chief Information Commissioner, Orissa to hear the case and
supply us the information on 18.1.08. Though more than one and half year has
passed, we could not get the information.
I feel that, long delay in
adjudicating cases is the reflection
of callous attitude of the
Commission or inefficiency of the
Commission. In this context, I would pray before His Excellency to constitute an enquiry in to the
matter and take appropriate legal action
against the Commission under section 17 of the RTI Act. .
Thanking you
Venue- Bolangir
Date- 13.8.09 yours sincerely
Srikar Behera
Enclosures: Copy of the
Complaint case
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To
The Governor, Orissa
Raj Bhawan,
Sub- Complaint against State
Chief Information Commissioner, State Information Commissioner, Orissa for
inordinate delay in disposing of the complaint case dated 18.1.08
Hon’ble Sir
I Shri Dharam Singh Dharua, At-Chaulbanjhi, Post- Maharapadar, via-
Khaprakhol, Dist- Bolangir, would
like to bring to your notice that on dated 18.1.08, I along with my friend Daitari Karuan ( village- Bharuamunda,
Post-Bender, via-Harishankar Road, Dist-Bolangir) had visited
District Watershed Office to
inspect some documents under section 4 of the RTI Act. We could not get Public Information nor any officials
cooperated with us to provide the information. We also could not see any
arrangement made for citizens to access the information.
I returned back and lodged
complaint to the State Information Commission, Orissa to get justice on same day. Though more than one and half year
has passed since my complaint, the
Commission has not heard my case. Even the first hearing has not been done at
Commission level. I sincerely feel that this is gross negligence on the part of the Commission to make unending delay in fixing date for hearing.
In this context, I would
request you to constitute an enquiry in
to the matter and take exemplary action against the Commission under section
17 of the RTI Act. .
Thanking you
Venue- Khaprakhol
Date- 13.8.09 yours sincerely
Dharam Singh Dharua
Enclosures: Copy of the
Complaint case
-----------------------------------------------------
To
The Governor, Orissa Date- 1.9.09
Raj Bhawan,
Sub- Complaint under Section 17 of RTI Act against State Chief Information
Commissioner and State Information Commissioner, Orissa for their abject
failure in delivering justice to the undersigned.
Hon’ble Sir,
I Shri
Nrusinha Mohapatra, At-Temple Road, Post-Sakhigopal , Dist-Puri bring to
your kind notice the following matter seeking your urgent action.
I am a poor Priest doing
some religious work in
As per Report of Hon’ble Lokpal, Orissa under section 10
(5) of the Orissa Lokpal and Lokayukta Act,1995 ( copy of the report
enclosed), on 29.12.06, I had applied to
the Public Information Officer, office of Commissioner of Endowments, Orissa,
Bhubaneswar seeking information relating to administration, maintenance of Seve
Puja of the diety and accounts of Sri
Satyabadi Gopinath Jew Temple {532P(M)}. The Application was received by PIO on
29.12.06. As per Section 7(1) of RTI Act, information is to be supplied within
30 days of the date of application. But PIO sent me the first intimation
regarding the fees to be deposited (i.e. Rs. 58/- only) after a lapse of
several months i.e. on 11.4.07( vide letter no. 4213). I deposited the required
fees and was given some information which contain 29 pages. . If the days of
delay beyond the stipulated period of 30 days are counted, it would be around
75 days.
While going through the
information, I found most of them are incomplete. On 23. 4. 07, I made a
complaint to State Chief Information Commissioner with a prayer to ensure
supply of genuine and complete information to me.
The case (C.C. No. 485/2007)
was first heard in the court of State Chief Information Commissioner, Orissa on
15.2.08. On the first hearing the Commission directed the PIO to refund
Rs.58/-, which was illegally collected from me, and to supply complete relevant
information free of cost. I was also directed
by the Commission orally to file an application about the information which has not been
supplied by PIO.
Then, I applied for
information on 18.2.08. The PIO provided a list of information containing serial no. 1 to 33 submitted by
Executive Officer. I found these information as false document.
On 24.4.08, day of second
hearing, at first, the Commission imposed penalty on Dharmendra Kar, Junior
Assistant to the tune of Rs.1750/- for 7 days’ delay in supplying information
to the PIO. In the said hearing, it was also found that the PIO had made unprecedented delay of 11 months in
supplying information. The Commission gave
him last opportunity to explain
delay. The Commission again gave them further time to supply full information
and fixed the next date fir hearing on 3.7.08.
On 3.7.08, the case was
again heard by State Chief Information Commissioner. On that day, PIO and
referred gave a mischievous plea that
the one of the auditors in Audit Section, who kept all the documents in Almirah
died, and so the concerned information couldn’t be obtained in right time and
supply of the said information got delayed. Hearing it, the Commission did not
penalize referred PIO i.e., Audit Superintendent. But I argued that the whole episode of death
of the concerned auditor, his signature in salary register and documents
received by whom should be enquired to trace out the fact. The Commission did not hear any thing. I
again also said that despite direction given by Commission in the last hearing,
PIO has supplied me false and fraud information. Immediiately, PIO, Mr. Amar
Kumar Das said that the Executive Officer of the Satyabadi Gopinath Dev
Endowment has supplied me fraud information. I am not responsible for it. It is
astonishing that the Commission said me to file FIR in the local Police station
against the person who supplied false information. However, the Commission
noticed to the Executive Officer to appear before the court of the State
Information Commission in the next hearing dated 18.9.08.
On18.9.08 the case was again
heard, and this time by Mr. Jagadananda, State Information Commissioner, who
was new to this case. He neither heard
anything nor asked the Executive Officer,
On 29.1.09, the day of final
hearing, without imposing any penalty or ensuring supply of complete
information to me, the division bench of the Commission unilaterally disposed
of the case.
Sir, despite my hard effort,
I couldn’t get the information. There is a lot of irregularities and corruption
in temple administration. The information that I sought for could have brought
it to public notice. But Orissa Information Commission by closing its eyes to
my information requirements seems to push it under the carpet under pressure of
the officials of Commissioner of
Endowments.
The first and foremost duty
of the Commission should be to ensure supply of genuine and complete
information to the citizens by the PIOs, or alternatively to penalize them
for their failure to do so. The State
Information Commission has patently failed to discharge such a duty, which
shows the inefficiency of the concerned Information Commissioners.
I do request you to make an
enquiry in the matter and exercising the power under Section 17 of the RTI Act
to take appropriate action against the guilty in the greater interest of
implementation of RTI Act in the state.
Thanking you
Yours sincerely
Nrusingha
Mohapatra
Sakhigopal,
Puri
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